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The Doctrine
The doctrinal position of CrossVision is in full agreement
with the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message of the Southern
Baptist Convention. While the entire text of the 2000
Baptist Faith and Message may be found at
http://www.sbc.net/bfm/default.asp,
a brief summary follows:
The Scriptures
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is
God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure
of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation
for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for
its matter.
God
There is one and only one living and true God. …The eternal
God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
with distinct personal attributes, but without division of
nature, essence, or being.
God the Father
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. …God is
Father in truth to those who become children of God through
faith in Jesus Christ.
God the Son
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. …He honored the divine law by His
personal obedience, and in His death on the cross, He made
provision for the redemption of men from sin.
God the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. …He exalts Christ. He
convicts of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. …He
enlightens and empowers the believer and the church in
worship, evangelism, and service.
Man
Man was created by the special act of God, in His own image,
and is the crowning work of His creation. …By his free
choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human
race. … The sacredness of human personality 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 respect and Christian love.
Salvation
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 blood obtained eternal redemption
for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes
regeneration, sanctification, and glorification.
God's Purpose of Grace
Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which
He regenerates, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. …All true
believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in
Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit will never fall away
from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end.
The Church
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…and seeking to extend
the gospel to the ends of the earth. …This church is an
autonomous body. …The New Testament speaks also of the
church as the body of Christ, which includes all of the
redeemed of all the ages.
Baptism
Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water.
…It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith
in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer's
death to sin, the burial of the life, and the resurrection
to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus.
Last Things
God, in His own time and in His own way, will bring the
world to its appropriate end. …Jesus Christ will return
personally and visibly…the dead will be raised; and Christ
will judge all men in righteousness. The unrighteous will be
consigned to Hell. …The righteous… will receive their reward
and will dwell forever in Heaven with the Lord.
Evangelism & Missions
It is the duty and privilege of every follower of Christ and
every church of the Lord Jesus Christ to endeavor to make
disciples of all nations … to seek constantly to win the
lost to Christ by personal effort.
Stewardship
God is the source of all blessings, temporal and spiritual;
all that we have and are we owe to Him. Christians have a
spiritual debtorship to the whole world, a holy trusteeship
in the gospel, and a binding stewardship in their
possessions. They are therefore under obligation to serve
Him with their time, talents, and material possessions.
Cooperation
Christ's people should … organize such associations and
conventions as may best secure cooperation for the great
objects of the Kingdom of God. Such organizations have no
authority over one another or over the churches.
…Cooperation is desirable between the various Christian
denominations.
The Christian & the Social Order
Every Christian is under obligation to seek to make the will
of Christ supreme in his own life and in human society. ...
The Christian should oppose in the spirit of Christ every
form of greed, selfishness, and vice.
Family
God has ordained the family as the foundational institution
of human society. …Marriage is the unity of one man and one
woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. …The husband
and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are
created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the
way God relates to His people. …Children, from the moment of
conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. |