Statement of Faith
We believe that God has spoken through His Written Word, The Bible, and through His Son, Jesus Christ, The Word Incarnate. We believe that Jesus Christ is God’s final revelation.
As the Bible is God’s Word, we hold to the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture, an inerrant and infallible Scripture. We submit to God’s Word as the final authority over all of life and knowledge and practice and is indeed profitable for godly living and instruction in righteousness.
We believe that in the beginning it was God alone and that He created ex nihilo. We believe that man is created in the image of God and that all of man’s creative and scientific endeavors are only possible because he is made in the image of God. We believe that God created man male and female. We believe that God created Adam and Eve specifically and specially.
We believe that the man and the woman, Adam and Eve, our first parents, disobeyed God’s command, and thereby fell into sin. As all human beings are descended from Adam, we believe that the entire human race fell into sin and that all of Adam’s progeny are conceived in sin and born sinners in need of salvation. We believe that all of human history and all of creation have been marred by man’s rebellion against God; we believe that all men, women, and children suffer as a result of the fall and indeed all of creation is affected by sin’s curse. We believe that the wages of sin are death and that God’s retribution is just.
As we are born dead in our sins and trespasses, we cannot deliver ourselves and are in need of a Savior. As we are under God’s righteous condemnation, we cannot justify ourselves. The Lord Jesus Christ, eternally begotten, very God and very Man, became incarnate, was born of the virgin Mary, lived a life of active obedience and perfectly kept God’s holy law, and laid down His life as a perfect substitute for sinners. Through His shed blood, our sins are atoned for, our guilt & condemnation are taken away, and God’s holy wrath is propitiated. By Christ’s atonement at the cross, we are saved.
We do not believe that we can earn or contribute to our salvation by any works or merits of our own and that we are utterly dependent on the person and the work of Christ. Our best efforts are tainted by sin. We are saved solely by the sovereign grace of God. Therefore, our faith rests only in the Lord & Savior Jesus Christ, and He alone can deliver us. We are justified by faith alone in Christ alone.
We do not believe that we can make dead men live – ourselves or others. God the Holy Spirit convicts men, women, and children of their sin and regenerates them as He wills and empowers them to exercise faith. We are not in need of a little help and assistance; we are in need of a resurrection. The Spirit gives life. As He gives new birth and new life, we believe He indwells the believer and gives Him the power and the guidance to live a life pleasing to God. We believe the new creature in Christ is no longer under the condemnation of God’s holy law, but is nonetheless not to use this freedom as an occasion for sin. We believe that the truly free Christian will actually have a love and delight in God’s holy law, not as though he or she could keep it with sinless perfection after his or her own strength, but as a Spirit-filled and Spirit-empowered believer desirous of that holiness which reflects God’s character and without which no one will see the Lord. We believe that disciples will grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and that God’s work of sanctification will be accomplished, even as the believer works out his or her salvation with fear and trembling.
We believe that God is faithful, even when we are faithless, and that He will not allow any of His own to be snatched from His hand. We believe that true believers, those for whom Christ has shed His precious blood, will hear His voice and will persevere to the end. We believe that those adopted into God’s family by the Father’s election, the Son’s sacrifice, and the Spirit’s application will not be lost and may know assurance. We believe that the church will most assuredly be given to the Son as His bride and that He will indeed see an inheritance from every tongue, nation, kindred, and tribe.
We hold to the essential unity of God. God is One; there are no gods besides Him. We believe in the Trinity, the Triune God: One God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity. We believe that God reveals Himself as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. This revelation is attested to in both God’s Written Word, the Bible, and in the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Incarnate Word. We confess the profundity of this mystery, but deny both a doctrine of three gods and any teaching that would confuse the distinctiveness of the three persons of the Trinity. We believe that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are each active in both creation and redemption, are eternal, self-existent, & immutable, are altogether holy and glorious, and are worthy of our praise and thanksgiving. To God alone glory.
We believe that every human being is accountable to God and must come to Christ in repentance and faith in order to be saved. We believe the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, calls men, women, and children to come to Him. We believe it pernicious and tragic for a person to reject Christ because he or she has made the self-assessment that he or she is not one of the elect or is too big of a sinner, as though these matters were not of Divine prerogative and power to save. Christ calls those who are weary and heavy-laden to come unto Him.
As individuals are born again, we believe that the Holy Spirit not only regenerates the individual believer, but unites him or her into the body of Christ, which is His bride and passion. In the life of the church, the believer enjoys fellowship with others of like precious faith, grows in his or her faith, and has opportunity to exercise his or her gifts and talents as unto the Lord. In the church, Christ’s government is exercised in this world. In the church, Christ meets with His people in the ministry of the Word and of prayer and in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We do not believe a ministry such as Christian Scholar ~ Servant Ministries should replace or substitute for the life of the church, but serves a specialized function which should extend the outreach of the church to the glory of Christ.
We understand that not all will come to Christ and some will persist in sinful rebellion even to the end. We believe that rejection of Jesus Christ is consequential and that there is no other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved. He is the only One Who has ever lived that has kept God’s Law perfectly and been the blameless Savior. We hold to the uniqueness and necessity of Christ’s person and work.
We believe that Jesus Christ truly died in His humanity on the cross and suffered all the pangs of hell and death. We believe that Christ’s work did not end on the cross or in the grave, but that He conquered sin and death. We believe the Lord Jesus Christ rose victorious the third day fully alive, that He ascended into heaven and made all His enemies His footstool, and that He will return again bodily in great power and glory on that final day, in which He will raise the dead and consummate an everlasting kingdom. We believe that those who are in Christ will inherit life eternal and enter a kingdom of blessing. We believe that those who have rejected Christ will come under final and eternal judgment. We believe in the reality of heaven and hell, as witnessed to by the Scripture and by Jesus Himself. Jesus asserts that the Scripture cannot be broken.
If we say we love God, then we ought to love our neighbor. Expression of that love may be manifested in different ways and may at times be limited by human frailty. We ought to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves. We ought to seek to be a light and salt blessing to others in our temporal pilgrimage until Christ comes again. We ought to be in this world, but not of it. We believe with compassion and conviction that we ought to live in such a way as to please God and as much as we are able by God’s grace be a blessing to others.
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An Expanded Explanation and Discussion
Christian Scholar ~ Servant Ministries has been privileged to minister to individuals and groups from various Christian heritages as well as to individuals from a variety of different religious backgrounds. There have also been those, who might declare an agnostic or atheistic viewpoint. CSSM has functioned in both church-based and secular settings both at home and abroad.
Nonetheless, Christian Scholar ~ Servant Ministries holds to the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. CSSM would fall in the train of historic evangelicalism, which blossomed at the time of the Reformation (not the frequent popular, sociological, contemporary, and sometimes political usage of the word “evangelicalism”). CSSM would be in sympathy with the Reformed Confessions (e.g. the Canons of Dort, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Westminster Standards) as true expressions of Biblical faith. Some individuals with whom CSSM has co-labored have been more Baptistic in their doctrine and polity. As with the Westminster Assembly divines, some have been more Independent in their polity and some more Presbyterian.
The Westminster Confession of Faith would be considered an excellent summary of Christian doctrine, albeit subordinate to Holy Scripture. A careful edition of the Westminster Confession of Faith may be found at www.opc.org under the heading “Standards”, subheading “Confessions and Catechisms”, and “Westminster Confession of Faith”. This link does not imply any endorsement of CSSM by The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. A printed copy of the Apostles’Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Westminster Shorter Catechism may be found at the back of the Trinity Hymnal (Revised Edition) [Great Commission Publications: Atlanta, 1990], a publication of the Presbyterian Church in America and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
CSSM speaks of being pleased to minister to others from different backgrounds, because there is not a desire to be unnecessarily restrictive. However, CSSM does not want to be dishonest in its convictions.
Another theme that sometimes arises among Christians is “No creed but the Bible!” Some see “creedalism” as an unhealthy encumbrance on the Christian believer, who simply wants to believe what the Bible teaches. In its true sense, however, a creed is a statement of what one believes (from the Latin credo, “I believe”) and a confession is a corporate statement of what a body of believers affirms. The Biblical understanding is that Christians are not to live in isolation, but in the fellowship of Christ’s church. Most Christian churches and organizations do develop a “statement of faith” or “confession” or “corporate covenant” (what believers mutually promise to God and to one another, if they are to be members of an assembly). Even if one makes the bald statement “No creed but the Bible”, one may discover in one’s personal pilgrimage as well as in one’s study of church history that there have been variations and sometimes heretical understandings of what the Bible actually teaches. A confession or statement of faith gives a definite summary of what an individual or body of believers are confessing as to their understanding of what the Bible teaches.
The historic creeds and confessions referenced above give a rather robust reflection of Christian doctrine. Some give particular expression to what is to be affirmed and what is to be rejected concerning important matters such as the Trinity and the fully divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ. Not all visitors to this website may want to search for these documents immediately, and for this reason Christian Scholar ~ Servant Ministries has provided the Statement of Faith above. It is not offered as an improvement or replacement of articulate and carefully-deliberated, historic confessions such as the Westminster Confession of Faith. However, the above CSSM Statement of Faith is also not presented as a vacuous insertion on the website, but as a definite expression of what CSSM believes that may be known to all.