Route 316 Statement of Faith

1. We believe that the Bible is inspired by God in its entirety. The original Bible Scripture is inerrant and serves as the principles of Christian faith and conduct. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

2. We believe that there is only one living and true God, eternal and unchanging, and manifests Himself in three distinct Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19; Mark 12:29), and is the Creator and Lord of the universe (Genesis 1; Acts 17:24).

3. We believe that Jesus Christ is God’s only begotten Son (John 3:16), conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary (Matthew 1:18-25), became flesh and made His dwelling among us (John 1:11, 14), was crucified and died on the cross for the redemption of our sins, was buried, and rose from the grave on the third day (Matthew 27, 28; 1 Corinthians 15:3-8), ascended to heaven (Acts 1:9) where he sits at the right hand of God, praying for all believers (Mark 16:19; Hebrews 1:3), and will return to judge the living and the dead (Matthew 25:31-46; Revelation 20:11-15).

4. We believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in every believer and inspires, intervenes, counsels, comforts, bears witness to the truth, convicts, and leads sinners to repentance and believers to holiness (1 John 4:13; Galatians 5:22-24; Ephesians 4:30).

5. We believe that God created humans in His image and in His likeness, but that sin entered the world through one man, and death came to all because of sin, which cannot be justified by works (Romans 3:20), and that in order to be saved, we must repent, accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior (Acts 4:8-12, 2:38, 4:12; Romans 10:9-10; Galatians 3:24), and believe that we are save by grace alone through faith in His redemptive work on the Cross (Ephesians 2:8-9).

6. We believe that the Church is the body of Christ (Ephesians 1:23) with Christ as its head (Ephesians 5:23), and that together, the believers form the body where each member takes part, and that the body is built-up as each part uses their gifts and resources to serve Christ and one another (Romans 12:5; Ephesians 4:11-16).

7. We believe in the blessed hope of the return of Jesus Christ, at which time we will receive our resurrected and glorified bodies and will forever be with the Lord (Titus 2:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:17).