The RTI Statement of Faith

• We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God committed to the Church as such.

• We believe that God created all the heavens and the earth.

• We believe that God's knowledge is omniscient, that is, infinite and perfect. God does not know things because they are, but rather, things are because God knows them. God knows infallibly and exhaustively all things that are merely possible and also all those things that are part of the created order whether they be past, present, or future.

• We believe God is omnipresent, that is, He is everywhere present at all times and in all places equally.

• We believe God is omnipotent, able to do whatever He wills in accordance with His nature.

• We believe that God is eternal and immutable, that is, unchangeable in His attributes and characteristics. The immutability of God does not mean that He exists in an eternal frozen pose, incapable of anything. God certainly can and does act in our ongoing history, yet all divine action, such as the act of creating the universe, or the Incarnation, are transitive, that is, they induce no change in God but only on that which is external to Him.

• We believe that there is one wholly sovereign God, eternally existent in three Personal subsistences: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

• We believe in one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the essence of God. In this Trinity no Person is before or after another, no Person is greater, or less than another; all three Persons are co-eternal, co-equal, and co-partakers of the single divine essence of God.

• We believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory.

• We believe that any doctrinal teaching that agrees with the heresies of Arius, Marcion, Eutyches, Nestorius, Apollinaris, and such others as did either deny the eternity of Christ’s Godhead, or the truth of Christ’s humanity, or confounds them, or else confuses, mixes, or divides them, is contrary to the Scriptures.

• We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life.

• We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of eternal life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of eternal damnation.

• We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ.

• We believe that God created man and woman in a state of sinless perfection with particular dignity as His image bearers on the earth.

• We believe that any doctrinal teaching that denies or deviates from the covenant of works, wherein Adam transgressed God's commandment, resulting in sin and condemnation for himself and all his posterity before a just God, leaving all persons totally unable to merit acceptance with God (justification) as a result of this legal breach, whether by word or deed (thought or action), is contrary to the Scriptures.

• We believe that any doctrinal teaching that denies or deviates from the historical Reformed interpretation that teaches God's covenant of grace (salvation by a sovereign God) was eternally founded, wherein the Father elected individuals in Christ (the elect), the Son agreed to redeem the elect as their Federal representative, being the only acceptable mediator between God and man; in the fullness of time, being born of a woman, He fulfilled all the necessary requirements for Divine justice and restitution in His atoning work upon the cross; wherein the Father and the Son sends the Holy Spirit to renew and impute Christ's righteousness to them, whereby all their sins, past, present and future, are forgiven, once and for all time; wherein they are declared righteous by God and are sealed by the Spirit as a guarantee of their promised eternal inheritance, that is, the salvation of their souls and their bodily resurrection, is contrary to the Scriptures.

• We believe that our first parents sinned against God and that everyone since is a sinner by nature and choice. Sin has totally affected all of creation including marring human image and likeness so that all of our being is stained by sin (e.g. reasoning, desires, and emotions).

• We believe that because all people have sinned and separated themselves from the Holy God that He is obligated to save no one from the just deserved punishments of hell. We also believe that God in His unparalleled love and mercy has chosen to elect some people for salvation.

• We believe the eternal decree of predestination of God's elect was made both before man's fall by the self-determination of his own will and in view of the Fall. In other words, when considering the enactment of the decree in human history, those predestined to salvation actually needed to be saved through God's gracious active intervention in the lives of the elect to insure their salvation. Those not elected to salvation were passively left by God to their own wicked devices. This passing over of the reprobate is important because God does not create unbelief in the hearts of the reprobate, as this wickedness was already present in their hearts. Also, from time to time, as we see from Scripture (for example, Exodus 7:2-5), God removes His restraining influence of common grace from the wicked, thereby giving them further over to their sin for His own glory and purposes.

• We believe that the salvation of the elect was predestined by God in eternity past without consideration of any merit of those elected, but was strictly by God's own counsel and for His own glory.

• We believe that the salvation of the elect was accomplished solely by the sinless life, substitutionary atoning death, and literal physical resurrection of Jesus Christ in place of His people for their sins.

• We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, monergistic regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.

• We believe that God's saving grace is ultimately irresistible by His chosen elect and that God does soften even the hardest heart and save the worst of sinners according to His will.

• We believe that the gospel should be passionately and urgently proclaimed to all people so that all who believe may be saved through the preaching of God's Word by the power of God's Spirit.

• We believe that since God Himself is immutable, omniscient, and omnipotent, his election of His people cannot be interrupted, changed, recalled, or canceled. Accordingly, we believe that true Christians regenerated of God's Spirit will be kept by God throughout their life, as evidenced by personal transformation that includes an ever-growing love of God the Father through God the Son by God the Spirit, love of brothers and sisters in the church, and love of lost neighbors in the culture.

• We believe that the salvation of the elect, by God's grace alone, through faith alone, shows forth in the ongoing repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ that leads to good works.

• We believe that God is Lord over all of life and that there is nothing in life that is to be separated from God.

• We believe that the worship of God to His glory is the end for which people were created and that abiding joy is only to be found by delighting in God through all of life, including hardship and death, which is gain.
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TNARS Faculty Mentor



Last edited by Ask Mr. Religion on Mon Jun 29, 2009 11:17 pm; edited 6 times in total

I have known many Baptists who consider themselves "Reformed" simply because they hold to the 5-points of Calvinism. I do not consider a Baptist to be Reformed, because they lack a biblical view of the covenants of God.

TNARS Faculty Mentor

TNARS Faculty Mentor