The following are the primary Christian theological beliefs that are included in the constitution of One House Church.
Furthermore, regarding important secondary theological issues, we value distinctive aspects of Baptist theology, such as plural pastoral leadership and mixed congregationalism, rooted in the doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, especially concerning soteriology. Those who hold leadership positions in the church should uphold and teach these points. At the same time, in this context, the diversity of beliefs among church members is expected, welcomed, and respected.
Statement of Faith
The Triune God
We believe in one God, eternally existing in three equally divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who know, love, and glorify one another. This one true and living God is infinitely perfect in both his love and his holiness. He is the creator of all things, visible and invisible, and is therefore worthy to receive all glory and worship. Immortal and eternal, he perfectly and exhaustively knows the end from the beginning, sovereignly sustains and governs over all things, and in his providence brings about his eternal good purposes to redeem a people for himself and restore his fallen creation, to the praise of his glorious grace.
Revelation
God graciously revealed his existence and power in the created order, and has revealed himself supremely to fallen humanity in the person of his Son, the incarnate Word. Furthermore, this God is a God who speaks, who by his Spirit graciously revealed himself in human words: we believe that God inspired the words preserved in the Scriptures, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, which document and are also the means of his saving work in the world. These writings alone constitute the verbally inspired Word of God, which, in the original writings, possesses supreme authority and is free from error, and is also complete in the revelation of his will for salvation, sufficient for all that God requires us to believe and do, and final in its authority over all the domain of knowledge it expresses. We confess that both our finitude and our sinfulness prevent the possibility of exhaustively knowing the truth of God, but we affirm that, enlightened by the Spirit of God, we can truly know the revealed truth of God. The Bible must be believed, as the instruction of God, in all that it teaches; obeyed, as God's commandments, in all that it requires; and trusted, as God's pledge, in all that it promises. As God's people hear, believe, and obey the Word, they are equipped as disciples of Christ and witnesses to the gospel.
The Creation of Humanity
We believe that God created human beings, male and female, in his own image. Adam and Eve belonged to the created order that God himself declared to be very good, serving as God's agents caring for, managing, and governing creation, living in holy and dedicated communion with their Creator. Men and women, equally created in God's image, enjoy equal access to God through faith in Christ Jesus and are both called to move beyond passive self-indulgence to meaningful private and public involvement in family, church, and civic life. Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union, which establishes the only normative standard of sexual relations for men and women, so that marriage serves as a type of the union between Christ and his church. In God's wise purposes, men and women are not simply interchangeable, but rather, they complement each other in mutually enriching ways. God ordains that they assume distinct roles that reflect the loving relationship between Christ and the church, with the husband serving as head, demonstrating Christ's loving and sacrificial devotion, and the wife submitting to her husband, showing the church's love for its Lord. In church ministry, both men and women are encouraged to serve Christ and develop their full potential in the various ministries of God's people. The distinct leadership role within the church, given to qualified men, is grounded in creation, fall, and redemption, and should not be diverted by appeals to cultural developments.
Fall
We believe that Adam, made in the image of God, distorted that image and lost his original blessing—for himself and all his descendants—by falling into sin through Satan's temptation. As a result, all human beings are alienated from God, corrupted in every aspect of their being (that is, physically, mentally, volitionally, emotionally, spiritually) and condemned, ultimately and irrevocably, to death—except by the gracious intervention of God himself. The supreme need of every human being is to be reconciled to the God under whose just and holy wrath we stand; the only hope of every human being lies in the undeserved love of this same God, who alone can redeem and restore us to himself.
God's Plan
We believe that from all eternity God, in his grace, determined to save a great multitude of guilty sinners from every tribe, language, and nation, and to this end he knew and chose them. We believe that God justifies and sanctifies those who, by his grace, have faith in Jesus, and that one day he will glorify them—all to the praise of his glorious grace. In love, God commands and pleads with all people to repent and believe, having bestowed this saving love upon those he has chosen and having ordained Christ as their redeemer.
The Gospel
We believe the gospel to be the good news of Jesus Christ—the very wisdom of God. Complete foolishness to the world, yet the power of God to those being saved, this good news is Christological, centered on the cross and resurrection: the gospel is not proclaimed if Christ is not proclaimed, and the authentic Christ will not have been proclaimed if his death and resurrection are not central (the message is: “Christ died for our sins… and rose again”). This good news is biblical (his death and resurrection are in accordance with Scripture), theological and salvific (Christ died for our sins to reconcile us to God), historical (if the saving events had not happened, our faith would be in vain, we would still be in our sins and would be, of all men, the most deserving of pity), apostolic (the message was entrusted to the apostles and transmitted by them who were witnesses of these saving events), and intensely personal (when it is received, believed, and firmly held, people are individually saved).
The Redemption of Christ
We believe that, moved by love and in obedience to the Father, the eternal Son became human: the Word became incarnate, fully God and fully human, one Person in two natures. The man Jesus, the promised Messiah of Israel, was conceived by the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He perfectly obeyed his heavenly Father, lived a sinless life, performed signs and miracles, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, bodily rose from the dead on the third day, and ascended into heaven. As mediator King, he is seated at the right hand of God the Father, exercising in heaven and on earth all the sovereignty of God, and is our High Priest and righteous Advocate. We believe that through his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus Christ acted as our representative and substitute. He did this so that in him we might become the righteousness of God: on the cross he canceled sin, propitiated God, and, bearing the full penalty of our sins, reconciled to God all who believe. Through his resurrection, Christ Jesus was vindicated by his Father, broke the power of death, and conquered Satan, who previously had power over it, and brought eternal life to all his people; through his ascension, he was forever exalted as Lord and prepared a place for us to be with him. We believe that salvation is in no one else, because there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved. For God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no human being can boast before him. Christ Jesus became for us the wisdom of God, that is, our righteousness, uprightness, holiness, and redemption.
The Justification of Sinners
We believe that Christ, through his obedience and death, fully paid the debt of all those who are justified by him. By his sacrifice, he bore in our place the punishment that was due for our sins, satisfying God's justice properly, really, and fully for us. By his perfect obedience, he satisfied God's just demands on our behalf, since by faith alone this perfect obedience is credited to all who trust in Christ alone for their acceptance before God. Because Christ was freely given on our behalf by the Father, and his obedience and punishment were accepted in place of our obedience and punishment, this justification is by free grace alone, so that both the exact justice and the rich grace of God may be glorified in the justification of sinners. We believe that a zeal for personal and public obedience flows from this free justification.
The Power of the Holy Spirit
We believe that this salvation, attested throughout Scripture and assured by Jesus Christ, is applied to His people by the Holy Spirit. Sent by the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ, and, as another Paraclete, is present in and with those who believe. He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and by His powerful and mysterious work regenerates spiritually dead sinners, awakening them to repentance and faith, and in Him they are baptized in union with the Lord Jesus, so that they are justified before God by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone. Through the agency of the Spirit, believers are renewed, sanctified, and adopted into the family of God, partake of the divine nature, and receive His gifts which are sovereignly distributed. The Holy Spirit Himself is the pledge of the promised inheritance and, in this present age, dwells in, directs, guides, instructs, equips, renews, and empowers believers to live and serve as Christ did.
The Kingdom of God
We believe that those who have been saved by God's grace through union with Christ, by faith and the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, enter the kingdom of God and enjoy the blessings of the new covenant: the forgiveness of sins, the inner transformation that awakens a desire to glorify, trust, and obey God, and the prospect of glory yet to be revealed. Good works constitute indispensable evidence of saving grace. Living as salt in a decaying world and light in a dark world, believers should never withdraw into seclusion from the world nor become indistinguishable from it; on the contrary, we should do good to the city, so that the glory and honor of the nations may be offered to the living God. In recognition of whom this created order belongs and because we are citizens of the kingdom of God, we should love our neighbor as ourselves, doing good to all, especially those who belong to the family of God. The kingdom of God, already present but not yet fully realized, is the exercise of God's sovereignty in the world toward the eventual redemption of all creation. The kingdom of God is an invasive power that dismantles the dark kingdom of Satan and regenerates and renews, through repentance and faith, the lives of individuals rescued from that kingdom. Therefore, it inevitably establishes a new community of human beings who are united under God.
The New People of God
We believe that the people of God's new covenant have already come to the heavenly Jerusalem; they are already seated with Christ in heavenly places. This universal church manifests itself in local churches of which Christ is the only head; thus, each "local church" is, in fact, the church, the house of God, the assembly of the living God, and the pillar and foundation of the truth. The church is the body of Christ, the apple of his eye, engraved on his hands, and he has committed himself to it forever. The church is distinguished by its gospel message, its sacred ordinances, its discipline, its great mission, and above all, by its love for God and the love of its members for one another and for the world. Crucially, this gospel that we love has both personal and corporate dimensions, neither of which should be ignored. Christ Jesus is our peace: he brought not only peace with God, but also peace among previously alienated peoples. His purpose was to create in himself a new humanity, making peace, and to reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, thereby destroying the enmity. The church serves as a sign of God's future new world when its members live in service to one another and to their neighbors, instead of living focused on themselves. The church is the corporate dwelling place of the Spirit of God and God's continuous witness in the world.
Baptism and the Lord's Supper
We believe that baptism and the Lord's Supper are ordained by the Lord Jesus himself. The first is linked to entry into the community of the new covenant, and the second to the ongoing renewal of the covenant. Together they are simultaneously God's pledge to us, divinely ordained means of grace, our public vow of submission to the once crucified and now resurrected Christ, and the anticipation of his return and the consummation of all things.
The Restoration of All Things
We believe in the personal, glorious, and bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ with his holy angels, when he will exercise his final role as Judge and his kingdom will be consummated. We believe in the resurrection of the bodies of both the righteous and the unrighteous—the unrighteous to eternal and conscious judgment and punishment in hell, as the Lord himself taught, and the righteous to eternal blessing in the presence of him who sits on the throne and of the Lamb, in a new heaven and a new earth, the dwelling place of righteousness. On that day, the church will be presented spotless before God through the obedience, suffering, and triumph of Christ; all sin will be purged and its nefarious effects banished forever. God will be all in all, and his people will be enveloped by his immediate and ineffable holiness, and all will be to the praise of his glorious grace.