Our Core Doctrine
The Word of God is our governing document and authority for all matters of faith and practice. Missions 3:16 missionaries, staff and board members believe the following Core Doctrines:
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Scripture
The Bible is inerrant and infallible, the verbally, plenary-inspired Word of God. It has absolute authority as God’s settled and final Word.
God has totally preserved His Word in full authority and power.
The interpretation of the Bible is by reliance upon the Holy Spirit, who inspired it, and by using normal, literal, historical, cultural, exegetical and contextual methods of interpretation.
The Word of God is a divinely-ordered and accurate record, by which God directs mankind, according to His purposes.
[See 2 Peter 1:16-21; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; John 15:26-27, 16:12-13; Isaiah 40:8]
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Godhead
There is one God, eternally existent as a Trinity–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Trinity is co-eternal in Person; co-identical in nature; co-equal in power and glory; and have the same attributes, authority and perfection.
Known eternally by His multitude of names in Scripture, He is God above all other gods of this world.
God is sovereign, holy, immutable, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.
God is the creator, sustainer, and ultimate ruler of the universe.
[See Deuteronomy 6:4-6; Exodus 3:14; John 8:58]
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Christ
The eternal Son of God enfleshed Himself, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit and was born of a virgin, exactly as prophesied.
He is perfect in person, fully God and fully man, with no earthly father.
He lived a sinless life, and died as the payment for the sins of mankind.
His death was efficacious, vicarious, substitutionary, sacrificial and totally satisfying to Holy God.
His physical and literal resurrection from the dead secured believers’ justification by His appearance before the Father, where He is now interceding for all believers as their great High Priest.
His literal, physical, and pre-millenial second coming will occur in the last days and is imminent. He will come to set up His millennial kingdom.
[See John 1:1-14; 1 Corinthians 15:12-28; Revelation 19:11-16]
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Holy Spirit
The Spirit of God convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
He has an intercessory work in believers’ prayers, and an indwelling, sanctifying work in believers’ hearts, from salvation on and forever.
He is a teacher and perfect guide to eternal truth.
He spiritually baptizes new believers into the Body of Christ, sealing their salvation for eternity.
He comforts and spiritually strengthens believers, gifting them with what is necessary to accomplish His will. These spiritual gifts are given for the orderly edification of believers, especially within the local church.
[See John 14:15-17; 15:21-27; 16:7-11; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31]
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Sin
Though man is created in the image of God, mankind was rendered lost at the Fall of Adam and Eve.
Men and women are personally separated from God, from conception.
Due to mankind’s depravity, people are unable to save themselves, nor can they come to salvation, unless the Father draws them, the Spirit convicts them, and the Word of God shows them.
Unregenerate mankind is separated from God, condemned to eternal, conscious punishment, first in Hell, and then in the Lake of Fire.
[See Genesis 3:1-6; Psalm 14:1-7; John 6:44; Romans 3:9-20, 10:13-17; Revelation 21:8; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22]
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Salvation
Salvation is by grace through faith in the substitutionary atonement and finished work of Christ, which includes His bodily resurrection and ascension into Heaven.
Salvation is eternally secure, being sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus completely fulfilled the New Covenant, having shed His blood as the payment for sin, whereby God makes believers His own people, and becomes their God.
[See John 3:1-21; Ephesians 2:1-10; Jeremiah 31:31-37]
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The Church
The universal church is a spiritual body of all believers–purchased, founded, and blessed by Christ. In Scripture it is called Christ’s Body.
It is visibly represented by NT local churches, which are organized bodies of believers, practicing Biblical ordinances [Communion and Believer’s Baptism].
Local churches are to be places of spiritual gathering for worship, Bible teaching, evangelism, discipleship, and edification. They are to carry out the Great Commission locally and globally, by promoting church-planting and other missions outreaches in the world.
[See Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8-2:47, 6:1-7; 13:1-2]
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Eternity
There will be a bodily resurrection of all mankind–the righteous to eternal life with the Lord, the unrighteous to eternal death/separation from the Lord–first in Hell and then in the Lake of Fire.
Existence in either place will be literal, eternal and conscious.
Believers who die are ushered immediately into the presence of the Lord, where in conscious blessedness they await the resurrection.
At the resurrection, believers’ bodies will be reunited with soul and spirit, forever to be with the Lord, existing in an everlasting body in the New Heaven and new Earth.
Unbelievers who die are confined to Hell, then resurrected to stand before the Lord at the Great White Throne Judgment. They will then be cast into the Lake of Fire, to be eternally separated from the presence of the Lord and suffering conscious torment and punishment.
[See John 5:25-29; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18; 2 Timothy 1:7-9; Revelation 20]
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Satan
A created angelic being who rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven, along with his host of fallen angels who also rebelled.
Being the author of sin, he is the evil one who introduced temptation and evil onto the Earth, which led to the fall of the human race.
He is the enemy of God and man, a wicked deceiver and prince of the powers of the air.
He will be eternally punished in the Lake of Fire, along with his host of fallen angels and all unbelievers.
[See Genesis 3:1-15; Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:11-19; Ephesians 2:2; Revelation 20:7-10]
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Creation
The verbal, fiat, perfect, and literal action of God to bring into existence all that is material and spiritual.
His creation was instantaneous, being accomplished in six literal twenty-four hour days, as Scripture affirms in GEN 1,2.
The Creator has revealed His divine attributes through His creative activity.
[See Genesis 1-2; Job 38-41; Romans 1:19-20; Exodus 20:11]