The Holy Scriptures
We believe the Bible is the verbally inspired Word of God.
Amplification:
We believe the writings of the Old and New Testaments are fully God-breathed to the extent that God chose the very words from the human writers’ vocabulary so that the Bible is the very word of God, inerrant in all its assertions and teachings. The Bible is, therefore, the only infallible authority for both doctrine and life. Since this is true, it is the special revelation of God to man and the only basis for true Christian unity. The King James Version of the Bible shall be the official translation used for preaching and teaching in the English-speaking world. (2 Timothy 3:16, 17; 2 Peter 1:19–21; Matthew 5:18; Hebrews 4:12; Acts 1:16; Mark 12:36; John 10:35; 16:12, 13; 17:17)
The Godhead
We believe God is supreme in His Person, eternal in His being, absolute in His attributes and glorious in His perfection. We believe in the Trinity. Amplification:
We believe in one Triune God, eternally existing in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—each co-eternal in being, co-equal in power and glory. We believe God created the universe in six literal, 24-hour periods. We reject evolution, the Gap Theory, the Day-Age Theory and Theistic Evolution as unscriptural theories of origin. God is personal, spirit, omniscient, sovereign, perfect, immutable, eternal in His being, holiness, love, wisdom and power. We believe that God is absolutely separate and above the world as its Creator, yet everywhere present in the world as the sustainer of all things. God is self-existent and self-revealing in His relationship with His creation. (Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 4:35; 6:4; Matthew 28:19; John 1:1–3, 14; 14:10, 26; Romans 1:2–4; 1 Corinthians 8:6; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Ephesians 4:3–6)
The Person of Jesus Christ
We believe in the virgin birth of Christ, His Deity and sinless life, His vicarious death, along with His bodily resurrection and ascension and in His personal, premillennial return. Amplification:
We believe the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, is the second person of the Godhead, God in the flesh, virgin born as no other man has ever been born nor ever will be born. He lived an absolutely sinless life and became the sinner’s voluntary substitute on the Cross of Calvary through His vicarious death for man’s sin. Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day, giving eternal assurance of redemption’s full payment and the satisfaction of God’s righteous indignation toward sin. He ascended bodily into Heaven and He will come to rapture His saints to be with Himself. His coming for His saints is imminent and will be personal, pre- tribulational and premillennial. (Isaiah 7:14; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:35; John 1:1; 14:3; 2 Corinthians 5:19–21; 1 Peter 2:22; 3:18)
The Person of the Holy Spirit
We believe the Holy Spirit is the executive of the Godhead. We believe that He executes the Plan of God for our conviction and salvation. Christians are partakers of the Holy Spirit and empowered for service by Him. Amplification:
We believe the Holy Spirit is a person possessing all the attributes of Deity. He convicts the unbelieving world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. He regenerates, seals, indwells, fills the believer and bestows gifts upon believers for service. He teaches the believer and sets him apart for a holy life. We believe the Bible repudiates the charismatic emphasis upon the experiential oriented tongues and ecumenical practices as any ministry of the Holy Spirit. We believe the Holy Spirit is the Commander-in-Chief of missions and that His testimony is not of Himself but Jesus Christ and the redemptive truths centered in Christ. (John 14:16, 17; 16:8; Ephesians 1:13, 14; 1 Corinthians 3:16; Romans 8:9; Acts 5:3, 4)
The Personality of Satan
We believe that Satan is a person, the author of sin and the cause of the Fall of Man, that he is the open and declared enemy of God and man, and that he shall be eternally punished in the Lake of Fire. (Job 1:6–7; Isaiah 14:12–17; Matthew 4:2–11; 25:41; Revelation 12:7–12; 20:10)
The Fall of Man
We believe that man was created in the image of God and by choice fell into sin and death. Hence, every person is sinful and under condemnation to eternal judgment. Amplification:
We believe that man was created by a direct act of God in the image and likeness of his Creator. By disobedience to the revealed will of God, man forfeited his reign over the earth and fell from his created state and standing with God. Therefore, all men are universally sinful both by nature and choice and devoid of the righteousness required by the law. All men are thus alienated from the life and family of God, without excuse, under the righteous judgment and wrath of God, and have within them no possible means of salvation. (Genesis 1:27; Romans 3:23; 5:12–19; Isaiah 53:6; Ephesians 2:1–3)
Civil Government
We believe that God has ordained and created all authority consisting of three basic institutions: 1) the home, 2) the church, and 3) the state. Every person is subject to these authorities, but all (including the authorities themselves) are answerable to God and governed by His Word. God has given each institution specific biblical responsibilities and balanced those responsibilities with the understanding that no institution has the right to infringe upon the other. The home, the church and the state are equal and sovereign in their respective biblically assigned spheres of responsibility under God. (Romans 13:1–7; Ephesians 5:22–24; Hebrews 13:17; 1 Peter 2:13–14)
The Salvation of Sinners
We believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly of grace and that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. Amplification:
We believe in the salvation of man by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ on the Cross. We believe that salvation is the free gift of God, neither merited nor secured in part nor in whole by any virtue or work of man, but received only by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in Whom all true believers have as a present possession the gift of eternal life, a perfectly righteous standing, and sonship in the family of God by a new birth. We believe that the Cross of Christ is redemptive, substitutionary, and propitiatory and the only basis of reconciliation for all of mankind who believe and that there is no possible salvation outside of Jesus Christ and His shed blood. (John 3:3–6, 16; 10:28, 29; Acts 16:31; Ephesians 2:8–10; 1 Timothy 2: 5, 6; 1 Peter 1:18–23)
The Freeness of Salvation
We believe that the Gospel makes the blessings of salvation free and that nothing prevents the greatest sinner from being saved except his own inherent depravity and voluntary rejection of the Gospel of Christ. Amplification:
We believe that salvation was accomplished on the Cross by Jesus Christ and is extended to all men as a gift to be received by faith. The basis of this salvation is totally the grace that provided the Cross. Although all men are responsible to receive the gift of salvation in Christ, only those who do respond to the ministry of the Spirit of God in the presentation of the Gospel will be saved. Salvation is the free and completed gift of God to all who will believe. (John 1:12; 3:16; 5:24; 12:46; Acts 16:31; Romans 10:11–13)
The Security of the Believer
We believe that those who receive Jesus Christ as Savior are eternally secure. Our security rests totally on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. As a result, we have assurance of eternal life. Amplification:
We believe that the true believer is forever secure as a redeemed possession of God. This security is founded on the full payment of the believer’s sin by the Cross of Christ in His substitutionary atonement and God’s proof of receipt of that payment in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The sole condition of salvation is faith in Jesus Christ and His redemptive work. This positive expression of faith has as its negative side repentance and rejection of any other basis of salvation. Therefore, the security of the believer is not conditioned upon his circumstances or emotional experiences or strength, but it is an acceptance of that basis of reconciliation, which has already been accepted by God. The believer is in the possession of God, which is the opposite of lost. He is secure because God has taken the responsibility for His own. (John 10:27–30; 1 John 2:1–2; Romans 8:31–34, 38, 39; 1 Corinthians 6:19; Hebrews 2:10)
Heaven and Hell
We believe in the eternal blessedness of the saved in Heaven and the eternal punishment of the lost in Hell. Amplification:
We believe in the bodily resurrection of the saved and lost, secured by the bodily resurrection of Christ. The spirits of the saved at death go immediately to be with Christ in Heaven, their lives and works shall be evaluated at the Judgment Seat of Christ for the determination of rewards, which will take place when Christ comes for His own in the Rapture. They will experience the blessedness of God’s presence for all eternity. The spirits of the unsaved at death descend immediately into Hades where they are kept under punishment until the Great White Throne Judgment. At this time, their bodies shall be raised from the grave and be cast into the eternal Lake of Fire, the place of final and everlasting punishment. (John 5:28, 29; 14:2; Revelation 20:14, 15; 21:4; Matthew 25:46)
The Church
We believe that the visible church is a congregation of baptized believers, practicing New Testament Principles, believing its doctrines, observing its ordinances and exercising its autonomy. Amplification:
We believe that a local church is an organized body of believers immersed upon credible (public) confession of faith in Jesus Christ, recognizing only two offices (filled by pastor and deacon), sovereign in polity, and bonded together for work, worship, mutual edification, observance of the ordinances and the worldwide proclamation of the Gospel. The church is distinct from Israel, but autonomous, with Christ as its head. (Matthew 28:19, 20; Ephesians 1:22, 23; Acts 2:41–47; Ephesians 4:11–13; 1 Corinthians 12)
Human Sexuality
We believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity beengaged in outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery, and pornography are sinful perversions of God’s gift of sex. We believe that God disapproves of and forbids any attempt to alter one’s gender by surgery or appearance.(Genesis 2:24; 19:5, 13; 26:8–9; Leviticus 18:1–30; Romans 1:26–29; 1 Corinthians 5:1; 6:9; 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8; Hebrews 13:4) We believe that the only legitimate marriage is the joining of one man and one woman. (Genesis 2:24; Romans 7:2; 1 Corinthians 7:10; Ephesians 5:22–23)
Family Relationships
We believe that men and women are spiritually equal in position before God but that God has ordained distinct and separate spiritual functions for men and women in the home and church. The husband is to be the leader of the home, and men are to be the leaders (pastors and deacons) of the church. Accordingly, only men are eligible for licensure and ordination by the church.
(Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:18; 1 Timothy 2:8–15; 3:4–5, 12)
We believe that God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. The husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church. The wife is to submit herself to the Scriptural leadership of her husband as the church submits to the headship of Christ. Children are a heritage from the Lord. Parents are responsible for teaching their children spiritual and moral values and leading them through consistent lifestyle example and appropriate discipline, including Scriptural corporal correction. (Genesis 1:26–28; Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 6:4–9; Psalm 127:3–5; Proverbs 19:18; 22:15; 23:13, 14; Mark 10:6–12; 1 Corinthians 7:1–16; Ephesians 5:21–33; 6:1–4; Colossians 3:18–21; Hebrews 13:4; Titus 1:6)
Divorce and Remarriage
We believe that God intended marriage to last until a spouse dies. Although divorced persons or divorced and remarried persons may hold some positions of service in their church, they may not be considered as missionaries with BIMI. (Malachi 2:14–17; Matthew 19:3–12; Romans 7:1–3; 1 Timothy 3:2, 12; Titus 1:6)
Abortion
We believe that human life begins at conception and that the unborn child is a living human being. Abortion constitutes the unjustified, unexcused taking of unborn human life. Abortion is murder. We reject any teaching that abortions of pregnancies due to rape, incest, birth defects, gender selection birth or population control or the physical or mental well being of the mother are acceptable. (Job 3:16; Psalms 51:5; 139:14–16; Isaiah 44:24; 49:1, 5; Jeremiah 1:5; 20:15–18; Luke 1:55)
Love
We believe that we should demonstrate love for others, not only toward fellow believers but also toward both those who are not believers and those who oppose us. We are to deal with those who oppose us graciously, gently, patiently and humbly. God forbids the stirring up of strife, the taking of revenge, or the threat or the use of violence as a means of resolving personal conflict or obtaining personal justice. Although God commands us to abhor sinful actions, we are to love and pray for any person who engages in such sinful actions. (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 5:44–48; Luke 6:31; John 13:34–35; Romans 12:9–10, 17–21; 13:8–10; Philippians 2:2–4; 2 Timothy 2:24–26; Titus 3:2; 1 John 3:17–18)
Lawsuits between Believers
We believe that Christians are prohibited from bringing civil lawsuits against other Christians. We believe the church possesses all the resources necessary to resolve personal disputes between members. However, we believe that a Christian may seek compensation for injuries from another Christian’s insurance company as long as the claim is pursued without malice or slander. (1 Corinthians 6:1–8; Ephesians 4:31–32)
AUTHORITY OF STATEMENT OF FAITH
This Statement of Faith does not exhaust the extent of our faith. The Bible is the sole and final source of all that we believe. We do believe, however, that the foregoing Statement of Faith accurately represents the teaching of the Bible, and, therefore, is binding upon all BIMI missionaries, and as such the Bradleys have adopted this Statement of Faith as their personal statement of Faith as well.
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