Hilltop Bible Church

STATEMENT OF FAITH
Section 1 - The Bible
We believe the Bible to be of divine authorship. It is God’s special revelation to man, revealing Himself, His attributes, His program of redemption; revealing man in the true divine estimation, his condition and his supreme need of salvation. We believe the Bible to be verbally inspired of God in its original writings. In the presentation of the Word it is to be “Rightly Divided” according to the principle set forth in II Timothy 2:15, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”.

Section 2 - The Godhead
We believe the God of the Bible to be the God of creation and the God of salvation, the one and only true God eternally and self-existing in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (Eph. 4:4-6, II Cor. 13:14).

Section 3 - Jesus Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, co-existed with the Father and the Holy Spirit, became true man in all things, sin excepted, through the Virgin Mary, begotten by the Holy Spirit. He was the Lamb of God foreordained to die to put away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He died through crucifixion, was buried and rose from the dead in bodily resurrection (I Cor. 15:4), ascended bodily into heaven, and is God-man at the right hand of the Father. He is coming to meet the Church, which is His Body, in the air at the termination of the present dispensation and shall come later in great power and glory to earth to set up the prophesied Kingdom given Him of the Father, to reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Section 4 - The Holy Spirit
We believe the Holy Spirit to have been given to indwell all who exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. He is a spirit, nevertheless, a person. He guides believers into all truth of God, reveals the things of Christ and glorifies Him. He convinces the world of sin and is resisted by those who believe not. He regenerates, baptizes into the Body of Christ, seals, indwells, enlightens, and empowers believers. He is grieved by believers who are disobedient to His directions and fills only those believers who are wholly yielded. (I Cor. 12:13, Eph. 1:13).

Section 5 - Total Depravity
We believe that all men, by nature, are dead in trespasses and sins and are totally unable to do anything pleasing to God until the Holy Spirit indwells them through believing in Jesus Christ as Savior. (Eph. 2:1-13, Rom. 3:3-23).

Section 6 - Redemption
We believe that God judicially declares as righteous by His grace any of the depraved human race who exercises faith in the Blood of Jesus Christ as the only but fully sufficient sacrifice for human sin. This complete salvation is bestowed as the free gift of God apart from man’s works. (Rom. 3:24-28).

Section 7 - Eternal Security
All of the saved are eternally secure in Christ. (Col. 3:1-4, Eph. 1:13).

Section 8 - The Church
In the present dispensation there is only one True Church, which is scripturally designated as the “Body of Christ”, and having a membership of all the saved. The church is an organism with Christ as its head, rather than an organization.

Section 9 - Gifts
The only gifts necessary for the ministry of the Body of Christ are those enumerated in Ephesians 4:7-16. Of these, only the gifts of Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers are in operation today. All of the sign gifts of the Acts period, such as tongues, prophesy and healing (I Cor. 12:1-31), being temporary in character, have ceased (I Cor. 13:8-11).

Section 10 - Service
We believe this free redemption of God is “unto good works” by the redeemed ones who are to be “zealous of good works”. The grace of God which brings salvation to the believer also teaches him through the word of God, and the Holy Spirit, to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, to live soberly, righteously, and Godly in this present world. (Tit. 2:12-13).

Section 11 - The Lord’s Supper
The communion of the Lord’s Supper as revealed through the Apostle Paul in I Cor. 11:23-26 is for members of the Body of Christ to observe “Until He Comes”. “For I (Paul) have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which He was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, He brake it, and said, ‘Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of Me’. After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped saying, ‘this cup is the new testament in my blood; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till He come’.” There is no place in Scripture where the Lord’s Supper and water baptism are linked together either as ordinances or as sacraments for the church.

Section 12 - Baptism
All saved persons have been made members of the Body of Christ by ONE HOLY Spirit - performed baptism (I Cor. 1:13 - 2:12). By that one baptism every member of the Body of Christ is identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. In the light of the statement concerning the One Baptism in Ephesians 4:5 and of the statement concerning Baptism in Colossians 2:12, and Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 1:17 that: “Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel”, no ceremony of water baptism will be required for membership or practiced by this organization.

Section 13 - Resurrection
Jesus Christ was resurrected bodily from the dead (Luke 24:39-43). Therefore (I Cor. 15:21), all men will have a bodily resurrection (Acts 24:15); the saved to everlasting glory and the unsaved to everlasting punishment (John 5:29; Rev. 20:11-15).

Section 14 - The Second Coming of Christ
We believe that “Blessed Hope”, the personal, imminent, pre-tribulation and pre-millennial coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for his redeemed ones; and in His subsequent return to earth, with His saints, to establish His Millennial Kingdom. (I Thess. 4:13-18; Zech. 14:4-11; Rev. 19:11-16; Rev. 20:1-6; I Thess. 1:10; 5:9; Rev. 3-10).

Section 15 - The State of the Unsaved Dead
The Scriptures in no place extends the hope of salvation to the unsaved dead, but instead reveals that they will ever continue to exist in a state of conscious suffering. The teachings of universalism, of probation after death, of annihilation of the unsaved dead, and of the unconscious state of the dead are opposed by us as being throughly unscriptural and dangerous doctrines. (Luke 13:23-28; Rom. 1:21-32; John 3:36; Eph. 4:5; Phil. 3:19; Col. 3:6; II Thess 1:9; II Cor. 5:6-8; 12:3, 41; Phil. 1:23; Rev. 14:11, 20:14-15).

Section 16 - Missions
The Mission and commission of the church is to follow the revelation of truth which our Lord Jesus Christ in glory gave to the Apostle Paul for us. (I Cor. 4:16; 11:1; Phil. 3:17; I Thess. 1:6; Rom. 11:13, 15:16; Eph. 3:1; I Tim. 2:7; II Tim. 1:11, 2:2). That Gospel which Paul called “my gospel”, in contrast to the gospel of the circumcision, is God’s message for today (Rom. 2:16; 16:25; II Tim. 2:8; Gal. 1:6-9, 11, 2:2, 5-7). We, as Paul, should strive to preach the gospel in the regions beyond where Christ has not yet been name. (Rom. 15:20; II Cor. 10:16).