Hope Baptist Church
ANJO City・AICHI Prefecture
A Bible Believing Church
Welcome to hopebaptist-anjo.org
Statement of Faith
(What We Believe)
I. God
In the existence of one and only one living and true God; an infinite intelligent Spirit, having a definite, distinctive personality, the Maker and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth, inexpressibly glorious in holiness, and worthy of all possible honor, confidence, adoration, allegiance, love and worship; that in the unity of the Godhead there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the same in essence, equal in attributes and in every divine perfection, and executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption and salvation;
II. Jesus Christ
In the miraculous virgin birth and the absolute deity of the Lord Jesus Christ; in His sacrificial, substitutionary death on the cross of Calvary to make atonement for sin by the shedding of His precious blood once for all; in His literal bodily resurrection, His ascension to heaven from the mount of Olives, in His intercession for the Saints at the right hand of the Father, and in His visible, bodily and premillennial return;
III. Holy Spirit
In the personality, deity and power of the Holy Spirit of God, and in the necessity and efficiency of His work in the enlightenment, regeneration, sanctification, enduement, resurrection and glorification of each believer;
IV. Man
In the creation of man in holiness, by a direct act of God and not by an evolutionary process; in the terrible reality of the fall of man, and in the total, universal depravity of mankind which has rendered him helpless, and hopeless of salvation from sin by his own efforts;
V. Christian Walk
That it is the obligation of every believer to witness by word and by deed to these truths, and to proclaim the Gospel;
VI. Salvation
In the redemption and salvation of sinners by grace alone, through the mediatorial offices of the Son of God, Who by shedding His blood made a complete atonement for sins, once for all; in the full and free forgiveness of all the sin of any and all who receive the Lord Jesus Christ as their own personal Saviour;
In the absolute necessity of regeneration as the initial step in salvation, i.e, that sinners must be born-again in order to be saved; that the new birth is a new creation in Christ Jesus; that it is instantaneous and not a process; that in the new birth the one dead in trespasses and sins is made a partaker of the Divine nature and receives eternal life, the free gift of God; that the new birth is accomplished, not by water baptism or by any other act of man or church, but by the divine work of the Holy Spirit, either directly or indirectly, through the inspired word of God; so as to secure the individual’s voluntary obedience to the Gospel; that at the new birth the life received at natural, physical birth is, by a diving legal transaction, accounted dead in Christ on the cross of Calvary; that at the new birth Christ comes to dwell in the believer by the Holy Spirit, the spirit of the believer being miraculously united to Him, thus imparting to the believing individual a new, perfect and sinless life, making him the righteousness of God in Christ; that the proper evidence of the new birth appears in the holy fruits of repentance, faith and newness of life;
VII. Eternal Security
In the final and ultimate perseverance unto eternal salvation, through the grace of God, of all who are truly born again; that the souls of believers are, at death, made perfect in holiness and immediately pass into glory; that the bodies of believers rest in the graves until their resurrection; we believe in a bodily resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust; in the pre-tribulation, pre-millennial rapture of the living saints;
VIII. Heaven and Hell
That there is a radical and essential difference between the believing righteous and the unbelieving wicked; that only those who through faith are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ are truly righteous and shall be taken to be with Him in heaven; that all such as continue in impenitence and sinful unbelief shall be cast into the lake of fire, a place of everlasting, conscious punishment prepared for the devil and his angels;
IX. Church
That a truly Scriptural church is a congregation of born-again believers, who have been baptized Scripturally by immersion, voluntarily associated together in fellowship for the purpose of edifying one another and preaching the Gospel, observing the ordinances of Christ, governed by His word, being otherwise entirely self-governing and self-supporting, completely free from the hierarchy of individuals and organizations, acknowledging only one head, the Lord Jesus Christ, and being free to cooperate and associate, or withhold from cooperation and association, with others similarly Scriptural local churches as it may see fit; that the “church which is His body” is the entire company of believers in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, regardless of present position in heaven or on earth;
X. Satan
In the reality and personality of the devil, who, together with a great multitude of other angels, fell from his first estate to become the enemy of God, man and all righteousness; that the devil is the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience, blinding deceiving and enticing them in order to lead them to follow him in his rebellion against God and to reject the salvation offered through Jesus Christ, that the devil and his angels will ultimately be cast into the lake of fire;
XI. Baptism
That all born-again believers should obey the Lord in water baptism by immersion, and that baptism is for born-again believers only; that baptism has no saving efficacy, but rather is an act of loving obedience towards God, whereby the believer recognizes and acknowledges to God and before his fellow men, the reality of his own death with Christ at the new birth, together with his responsibility to fully, entirely and continually yield his body to the control of the indwelling Saviour, acknowledging His absolute Lordship in every sphere of life, while seeking the enduement and anointing of the Holy Spirit, that by His fullness and power this consecration may be a moment by moment reality;
XII. Communion
In the privilege and responsibility which each baptized believer has of partaking of the communion service with others of God’s people who are walking in the light and in obedience to the word of God; that the bread and grape juice are symbols only; that the communion service has no saving efficacy, but it is a service of commemoration to assist the believer to meditate upon the sufferings and death of Christ, while examining himself in the light of these, thus leading him to greater love, praise, worship, adoration, obedience and holiness; that all true believers are under obligation to refuse to partake of this ordinance with those professing Christians who are walking in disobedience according to 1 Corinthians 5:6-13, or with unbelievers;
XIII. Separation
That believers ought to be separated from worldly and sinful practices unto a life of Christian influence and service; that it is the obligation and duty of every believer to abstain from all appearance of evil, to avoid all things whereby a brother is made weak or made to stumble, to give no offense in anything, but by love to serve one another; in the necessity of maintaining, according to the word of God, the purity of the church in life and doctrine;
XIV. The Bible
That the Holy Scriptures comprising of the Old and New Testament are the inerrant, infallible, and inspired Word of God, and therefore, are the final authority for all matters of faith and practice. For the English-speaking world, the Bible is preserved for us without error in the Authorized King James Version of 1611. (II Timothy 3:16-17, II Peter 1:20-21)