First Baptist Church of Cedaredge is an independent, non-denominational, evangelical body of believers.
What We Believe
Abbreviated Statement of Beliefs from the Constitution and Bylaws, 1996.
1. The Bible is the verbally inspired Word of God, inerrant, infallible, and the final authority for faith and life.
2. God exists as three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
a. God the Father exists as spirit transcendent above His creation over which He sovereignly rules.
b. The Son was foreordained through the virgin birth to become fully human and was offered up in sinless perfection to be our vicarious sacrifice, satisfying God's judgment upon our personal sin. All who are in Christ realize the eternal security of the blood covenant which Jesus made with the Father enabling the resurrected and ascended Christ to intercede for us as high priest before the Father.
c. The Holy Spirit sent by the ascended Son of God convicts the lost of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He indwells every believer granting spiritual gifts and empowering righteous living and understanding of God's word.
3. Satan and the demons are fallen angels who left their first estate in rebellion to God. Satan deceived sinless man and he sinned, passing the curse onto all human generations. Satan and his angels have been eternally judged by God to inhabit the lake of fire.
4. Many Holy angels remained to serve God and serve as ministering spirits to the redeemed.
5. The Genesis account is a record of God's creative genius. Only man was created in God's image. No evolutionary process is acceptable as replacing or explaining God's work in creation.
6. Salvation offered man by God requires all sinners to agree with God that Jesus has paid the price necessary to redeem man. The new covenant is a work of God alone, a free gift to all who truly believe.
7. Believers are justified (declared righteous) by God only by faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice.
8. Godly repentance exchanges established works of the flesh for the righteous works of God which are empowered by the Holy Spirit.
9. Man is saved by faith alone in the finished work of Christ upon the cross.
10. Sanctification follows salvation as God's work of “setting apart” His saints to keep His commandments and to be pure as He is pure.
11. The believer finds his new nature at war with sins of his flesh. Though in eternal standing he is seen as holy and blameless, nevertheless, in his carnal state he must battle the constant capacity and temptation to sin.
12. True believers are eternally secure based upon God's covenant which He made with us in Christ.
13. “The Church” is comprised of all true believers, worldwide, of all ages who were baptized into the church by the Holy Spirit upon receiving Christ as Savior. The local church is God's proving ground for the work of the Spirit in His saints.
14. Our Lord left the church with two ordinances: believer's baptism, and the Lord's Supper.
15. Our Lord left the Church with the task of taking the Gospel to all the world. Each member must be ready to proclaim and live that Gospel.
16. The Scriptures reveal divinely determined dispensations, or rules of life. Our Lord will first return for His bride prior to the tribulation period, a literal seven-year period of God's wrath upon earth called the Great Tribulation. It will terminate with the second coming of our Lord to establish His 1,000 year reign upon earth.