Beliefs

The primary purpose of Church of the Living Christ of Loysville (an independent and self-governing organization) is:

• to honor God through public worship, and thereby give glory to Him
• to proclaim to all people the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, as set forth in the Bible, God’s divinely inspired Word, and doing this in harmony with the Great Commission given us in Matthew 28: 18-20
• to edify each other, as we use our spiritual gifts
• to engage in good works as expressive of our gratitude to God for His saving grace to us; to reach out in ministry to the world of mankind through missionary endeavor, evangelism, and such other means as may be deemed appropriate and permissible by the Word of God.

1. We believe that “all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God” and that it is inerrant in its original writings and that its teaching and authority are absolute, supreme, and final as communicated by the Holy Spirit to men chosen of God. (II Peter 1:21; Exodus 20:1; II Timothy 3:16; Acts 1:16; I Thessalonians 2:13; II Corinthians 2:11-14; I Corinthians 14:37; II Samuel 23:2)
2. We believe in God the Trinity–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit– having the same nature, attributes and perfection; who has revealed Himself to men in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. (John 10:30, 36; Galatians 4:6; Acts 2:17-18; Genesis 1:26, 3:22, 11:7; Isaiah 6:8; Matthew 3:16-17; John 14:6; Ephesians 4:4-6; II Corinthians 13:14)
3. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became man, without ceasing to be God, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary, in order that he might reveal God and redeem sinful man. (John 1:1-2,14; Luke 1:35)
4. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished our redemption through His death on the cross as a representative, vicarious, substitutionary sacrifice; and that our justification is made sure by His literal physical resurrection from the dead. (Romans 3:24-25; I Peter 1:3-5, 2:24; Ephesians 1:7)
5. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God, where, as our High Priest, He fulfills the ministry of Representative, Intercessor and Advocate. (Acts 1:9-10, 7:54-56; Hebrews 4:14-16,7:25,9:24; Romans 8:34; I John 2:1-2)
6. We believe that the Holy Spirit is a person who reproves the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; and that He is the supernatural agent in regeneration, baptizing all believers into the body of Christ, indwelling and sealing them unto the day of redemption. (John 16:8-11; Romans 8:9; Ephesians 1:13-14)
7. We believe that He is the divine Teacher who guides believers into all truth; and that it is the privilege and duty of all the redeemed to be controlled by the Spirit. (John 16: 13; I John 2:20,27)
8. We believe that man was created in the image and likeness of God, but that in Adam’s sin the race fell, inherited a sinful nature, and thus became alienated from God; that he is dead in trespasses and sin, and of himself completely unable to remedy his lost condition. (Genesis 1:26-27; Romans 3:22-23, 5:12; Ephesians 2:1-3, 12)
9. We believe that salvation is the gift of God brought to man by grace and received by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ whose precious blood was shed on Calvary for the forgiveness of our sins. (Ephesians 1:7, 2:8-10; John 1:12; I Peter 1:18-19)
10. We believe that all the redeemed, who hold fast their profession, are kept by God’s power and are thus secure in Christ forever. (John 6:37-40, 10:27-30; Romans 8:1, 38-39; I Corinthians 1:4,.8; I Peter 1:5; Hebrews 4:14, 10:23)
11. We believe that it is the privilege of believers to rejoice in the assurance of their salvation through the testimony of God’s Word; which, however, clearly forbids the use of Christian liberty as an occasion to the flesh. (Romans 13:13-14; Galatians 5:13; Titus 2:11-15)
12. We believe in the “Blessed Hope” as the next great event in God’s program, when the dead in Christ shall be resurrected, and the living saints translated and caught up together to meet Him in the air. (Titus 2:13; I Thessalonians 4:13-17)
13. We believe in the personal, pre-millennial, and visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ to this earth when He will sit upon the throne of His glory and judge the Gentile nations, after which; He will reign for one thousand years in righteousness and peace. (Matthew 24:29-31; 25:31-33; Revelation 19:11-16)
14. We believe in the bodily resurrection of all men; the saved to eternal life, and the unsaved to judgment and everlasting punishment. We believe that the souls of the redeemed are, at death, absent from the body and present with the Lord where, in conscious bliss, they await the first resurrection when body, soul and spirit are reunited to be glorified forever with the Lord. We believe that the souls of unbelievers remain after death in conscious misery until the second resurrection when, with body, soul and spirit reunited, they shall appear at the Great White Throne judgment and, their names not being found in the book of life, they shall be cast into the lake of fire, not be annihilated, but to suffer everlasting conscious punishment. This is the second death. (Matthew 25:41-46; John 11:25-26; Revelation 20:4-6, 11-15; John 5:24-29; Luke 23:43, 16:19-28; II Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23, 3:21; I Thessalonians 4:16-18; II Thessalonians 1:7-10; Jude 6-7, Mark 9:43-48)
15. We believe in a personal devil who is the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience,” and “the god of this age,” and who is now “blinding the minds of men who believe not lest the light of the Gospel of Christ should shine in unto them.” (Ephesians 2: 1-3; II Corinthians 4:3-4)
16. We believe in scriptural baptism by immersion as an ordinance of the church; and that each member of the body of Christ should be baptized as a matter of obedience; that baptism has no saving value apart from believing in Christ, and only believers should be baptized. (Acts 8:34-39, 10:44- 48,16:25-33; Romans 6:4; Colossians 2:10-15)
17. We believe that the Lord’s Table was instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ, and that all who believe in Christ and have been baptized for the remission of sin should exercise obedience to Him by assembling themselves together in remembrance of Him in His death until He comes again. (Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22: 19-20; I Corinthians 11:23-28)
18. We believe that the Scriptures clearly teach nonconformity to the world for each and every believer; that born-again believers should be separated from the world unto Christ; that it is clearly commanded of God to all believers to live lives of separation from all worldly and sinful practices and to be holy as He is holy. (Colossians 3:1-4; II Corinthians 6:1-18; I Peter 1:1-21)

God, in His mercy, love, and grace, has entered into a covenant relationship with all those who have believed in Him. (Jeremiah 31:31-34, 32:40) Jesus, His only begotten Son, became the mediator of the New Covenant by shedding His blood on Calvary to make atonement for sin. (Hebrews 13:20-21) In the New Covenant God has made us not only members of His body, the Church, but members one of another. (Romans 12:4-5) Therefore, we have covenant responsibilities to each other as well as to God.

Let each one of us, therefore, covenant with God and with one another to fulfill to the utmost of our ability, God helping us, our purpose as previously stated, namely:

• to worship God and Him only, thus giving honor and glory to him to proclaim to all the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the spirit of the Great Commission which He has given to us
• to be careful to use our spiritual gifts in relation to one another only as they edify and build up the body, the Church (however, it is not the policy of this church to practice the controversial gifts of tongues, healings, and miracles)
• to be faithful in good works whereby we give expression of our thanks to God for His saving grace to us; and to reach out to a sinful world in a true spirit of evangelism and missionary endeavor