GRBC Doctrine

Greenmeadow Reformed Baptist Church holds to the doctrinal statement, The [Southern] Baptist Faith and Message of 1963. Below are listed some of the major doctrines including bracketed information inserted by the *Pastor (also see bottom note).

1. The Holy Bible was written by Divinely inspired men, with God as the Author, salvation as its end, and truth without any mixture of error, for its substance. It is our authoritative rule of faith and practice.

2. There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience.

3. God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. He is all powerful, all loving, and all wise.

4. Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. [By becoming human, He identified with man - yet without sin. He honored God's law by His personal obedience and in His on the cross He made an atonement for the sins of men. All areas of life are subject to His Lordship.]

5. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. He inspired holy men of old to write the Scriptures. Through illumination He enables [Christian] men to understand truth. He exalts Christ. He convicts of sin, of righteousnes, and of judgment. He calls men to the Saviour, and effects regeneration. He cultivates Christian character, comforts believers, and bestows the spiritual gifts by which they serve God through His church.

6. Man was created by the special act of God, in His own image, and is the crowning work of His creation. In the beginning man was of sin and was endowed by His Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God. The sacredness of human personality [life] is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore every man possesses dignity and is worthy of [life], respect and Christian love.

7. Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own obtained eternal redemption for the believer. Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God's grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are inseparable experiences of grace.

8. A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is a local body of baptized believers who are associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel, observing the two ordinances of Christ [Baptism and The Lord's Supper], committed to His teachings, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel [home and foreign missions] to the ends of the earth. The New Testament speaks also of the church as the body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages.

9. God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the world to its appropriate end. According to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in glory to the earth; the will be raised; and Christ will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting [and conscious] punishment. The righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord.

*The Pastor, above and beyond the Baptist Faith and Message, adheres with great affection to the great historic Baptist document, The Second London Confession of 1689. Both of these documents are available at the church.

~SOLI DEO GLORIA~

For more information:

Greenmeadow Reformed Baptist Church

266 Devil's Foot Road

North Kingstown, RI 02852 US

Email: webmaster@greenmeadowri.org

401-884-5133