What We Believe and Why We Believe It

The Word

Winding Waters Brethren Church Statement of Faith centers on Jesus Christ as the Living Word of God. The Holy Spirit progressively revealed God’s one plan of salvation in Christ from its frist promise in the Old Testament to its fulfillment in the New. Given in human words and actual events of history, the Scriptures of both Testaments are the inspired Word of God, authoritative, trustworthy and true in every respect. The New Testament, witnessing to the climax of that history, is the final rule of faith and life for the church. As an expression of grateful love to God, we believe and obey the Bible, for only the written Word reveals to us Jesus Christ, the Living Word.

The Triune God

The Bible reveals one true and Living God in three equal persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This one God is eternal, infinite, personal and perfect. The description and reality of the Trinity transcend human reason, logic and proof; they remain matters of revelation, confession and worship. In holy love the Triune God, by an act of sovereign will, created the universe and all living things. In this activity, as in everything touching the world of space and time, all three persons of the Godhead participated.

The Father

Scripture reveals the first person of the Trinity as the Father. The created world testifies to Him in both the external order of nature and the internal working of our conscience. As the Father of Old Testament Israel, he led the nation with parental love and care, with warnings, chastening and promise of inheritance. He sent His beloved Son into the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. All who confess Him as Lord, the Father makes a new Creation and adopts as his children.

The Son

The second person of the Trinity is the Son. He is the living Word, the revelation and revealer of the unseen Father. Although He possessed the divine nature from eternity, the Word became flesh for us and for our salvation. He was born of a virgin and lived the perfect human life upon earth. As Man and God, Jesus lovingly gave Himself for others in a ministry of service and reconciliation. His obedient life led to His sacrificial death in fulfillment of prophecy. Upon the cross He bore sin and its penalty in our place. He was raised and glorified in the body in which He suffered and died. He ascended as Lord and Savior into heaven, where He continually intercedes for those who are His and from which He will return in glory. Therefore, He is the source of eternal salvation for all who believe in Him, submitting to His Lordship.

The Holy Spirit

The third person of the Triune God is the Holy Spirit. He was active in creation, the history of Israel, the inspiration of Scripture, the ministry of Jesus and the birth of the church. The Spirit likewise acts today, opening the mind to understand Scripture, calling forth the response of repentance and faith, and giving the desire and ability to grow in Christlikeness. The New Testament portrays His activity as both event and process. It describes the event using the terms receiving, being filled, sealed, and baptized to indicate that the Holy Spirit comes to the believer at conversion. It describes the process as the Holy Spirit filling and equipping Christians at numerous times for special tasks. He joins them to Christ’s church, directs them to a local congregation of believers and bestows on them spiritual gifts for the church’s ministry. The Spirit’s indwelling is to make a visible difference in the lives of Christians as they yield to and cooperate with His transforming power.

Sin

God created humanity, male and female, in His own image with freedom to obey or disobey Him. As a result of their disobedient choice sin entered our race, and its effects of guilt and corruption have passed on to every person. The image of God, though not destroyed, is now distorted. Sin dwells in all people, making them unable to please God or to escape its power in their lives; the penalty of sin is death. A new, right relationship with God is promised to those who accept life in Christ.

Salvation

Salvation is both an event and a process; it is an accomplished fact, a continual walk and a future hope. Always the gift of God, salvation is received by repentance from sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; both witnessed to through water baptism. In faithfulness to His Promise, God adopts believers as His children, forgiving their sins and giving them His Holy Spirit. They in turn demonstrate their faith by obeying the commands of Christ and following His ecample in daily living. Scripture uses various terms to describe aspects of salvation, but ultimately it means Christlikeness-conformity to the image of God’s Son by the work of His Spirit within us. To that end, we are kept by the power of God, which operates through our faith.

The Church

Ordinances

God also gave to the church ordinances, symbolic rites established by the command and example of our Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles. They are pledges of our faithfulness to Him, visible declarations of the Gospel, and necessary expressions of an obedient faith. The ordinances include baptism by believer's baptism; confirmation by the laying on of hands; the bread and cup communion service; the anointing of the sick with oil; and the three fold communion service consisting of the washing of feet, the love feast and the bread and the cup. These ordinances uniformly testify to the gracious work of the triune God for His people in the past, in the present, and in the future.

End Times

By the sending of His Son, God inaugurated the last days. Therefore, the church waits eagerly for the consummation of the divine plan in Christ. Prior to that, the human body at death returns to the dust from which it came. The souls of the Christian goes immediately to be with the Lord, while the souls of the unsaved enter into torment. The climax of God's plan will include the personal, physical return of Jesus Christ from heaven as King of kings and Lord of lords; the bodily resurrection and judgment of believers unto eternal life; the bodily resurrection and judgment of the wicked unto eternal punishment; and a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells, where the saved will live eternally with the Lord. The Bible does not focus so much on the details and order of final events as on how believers are to live in light of these things.

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