Pastoral Bible Institute

The Son is the first and highest created being, brought into existence by the Father before all else, and therefore had a beginning.

A personal God who is the creator and sustainer of all things truly exists, independent of human belief.

There is exactly one God, numerically a single divine being.

Father, Son, and Spirit are genuinely distinct persons, not merely three modes, masks, or roles of a single person.

The Holy Spirit is God's active power or influence, not a distinct divine person.

God's self-revealed covenant name (YHWH/"I AM") expresses his self-existence and unchanging faithfulness and is central to rightly knowing him.

God is one being who eternally exists as three co-equal, co-eternal persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) sharing one undivided essence.

The one God exists eternally as three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

God is an immaterial spirit, without a physical body of any kind.

Love is essential to who God is in himself, grounded in the eternal love among the persons of the Trinity, not merely something God does toward creatures.

God genuinely hears and responds to petitionary prayer, sometimes acting differently than he otherwise would have.

The Son is of the very same essence (consubstantial) as the Father, not merely of a similar essence.

God is omnipotent: able to do anything that is logically possible and consistent with his nature.

God is fully present everywhere in his being, not merely in knowledge or power.

God knows all true propositions, including all of the actual past and present, exhaustively.

God infallibly and exhaustively knows the entire future, including all future free choices, as settled certainties.

The three persons are fully equal in deity, power, and glory, with no person greater or lesser than another in being.

Jesus rose bodily in the same (transformed) body that was crucified.

Jesus committed no sin during his life.

Right relationship with God comes specifically through Jesus Christ and not through any other name/mediator.

Father, Son, and Spirit are one single person manifesting in three modes or roles.

Jesus had a complete, real human body of flesh.

Deity and humanity are united in one single person (hypostasis) in Christ.

The New Testament directly identifies Jesus as "God" (e.g. John 1:1; 20:28; Titus 2:13).

Jesus Christ is identified with the LORD (YHWH) of Israel.

The Son was created/originated by God and is therefore a creature, however exalted.

The Son is a distinct divine person from the Father (not merely a mode or role of one person).

Jesus Christ is fully and truly God, sharing the one divine essence with the Father.

The Son existed as a divine person before his human birth, prior to and apart from creation.

Jesus is rightly given the worship due to God.

There was a state or "time" in which the Son did not exist.

The titles given to Jesus ("Lord," "Son of God," "Word") connote true deity, not merely a high human office.

After the incarnation Christ exists "in two natures," divine and human, each retaining its own properties.

Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary, without a human father.

The Son remains permanently incarnate: he retains a glorified human nature forever.

The Son is "of the same essence" (homoousios) as the Father, not merely of a similar essence.

The Son is essentially/ontologically subordinate to the Father (lesser in being, not merely in role).

The union of divine and human in Christ occurred at the moment of conception, not at a later point such as baptism.

Mary may rightly be called "Theotokos" (God-bearer / Mother of God) because the one she bore is God.

There was a real, primeval historical event ("the Fall") in which the first humans disobeyed God and lost an original state of integrity.

The Genesis Fall narrative is best read as a symbolic or mythic depiction of the universal human condition, not a report of a singular past event.

Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals from whom humanity descends.

Satan is a real, personal spiritual being who tempts and opposes God, not merely a symbol or personification of evil.

Physical death entered the human race as a consequence of Adam's sin; humans were not originally subject to death.

Adam's first sin has real, inherited consequences for all his descendants (an "original sin"), not merely a bad example.

Sin is fundamentally the transgression of God's law/command (an offense against a divine standard).

Moral evil arises necessarily from the gift of genuine creaturely free will, which God could not give without the possibility of its misuse.

After the Fall sin is so deep that it has become the very substance/essence of fallen human nature.

Properly speaking, something counts as sin only if it is voluntary (chosen knowingly and willingly).

The root of all sin is pride / inordinate self-love (turning from God to self).

Sin is most fundamentally a rupture of relationship/covenant with God and neighbor, more than law-breaking or substance-corruption.

No one in this life (apart from special exception) is wholly free from sin; the regenerate continue to sin.

The finally unsaved suffer conscious punishment in hell that never ends.

Good works/holiness are necessary not merely as evidence but as a real condition of final salvation.

Repentance (a real turning from sin) is required for salvation.

A person who is genuinely saved can never lose their salvation ("once saved, always saved").

Justification is a forensic, declarative act in which God legally pronounces the sinner righteous, distinct from the inner process of being made holy.

A genuine believer can fall away and forfeit salvation (apostasy / conditional security).

Salvation is accomplished by God alone working in the person (monergism); the human will does not cooperate in the new birth.

Baptism is a symbol/ordinance that publicly signifies a salvation already received by faith and does not itself convey saving grace.

Both faith and good works (cooperating with grace) are jointly necessary as the means by which one is finally justified before God.

A person is justified by faith alone (sola fide), apart from any contribution of their works to the ground of justification.

Saving faith necessarily includes submission to Christ as Lord and a commitment to repent/obey, not mere intellectual assent.

On the cross Christ bore the penalty/punishment that sinners deserved, satisfying God's justice in their place (penal substitution).

The righteousness by which a believer is justified is Christ's own righteousness credited/imputed to them, external to and not produced by the believer.

Salvation is fundamentally a lifelong process of being saved rather than a single completed event.

A believer can have a settled present assurance that they are saved.

God is one indivisible person who manifests successively or simultaneously as Father, Son, and Spirit, rather than three eternally distinct persons.

The Spirit is a distinct hypostasis/person, genuinely other than the Father and the Son, not merely a mode or aspect of the one God.

The Holy Spirit is eternal, without beginning, and shares the one uncreated divine nature.

The Spirit is of the same essence (homoousios) as the Father and the Son.

The Holy Spirit is the divine author who inspired the writers of Scripture.

The Holy Spirit is fully and truly God, equal in divine essence to the Father and the Son.

The Holy Spirit is a distinct personal agent (who can be grieved, speaks, wills, and intercedes), not merely an impersonal force or energy.

There is a specific sin against the Holy Spirit that is unforgivable.

The Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father AND the Son (filioque).

The Spirit works savingly in people who are outside the visible institutional church, including beyond explicit Christian profession.

Being "filled with the Spirit" is a repeatable, commanded experience distinct from the one-time indwelling.

Spirit-baptism is primarily for power/empowerment for witness and service, distinct from the saving work that makes one a believer.

The Spirit's saving, regenerating grace is ultimately irresistible in those God has chosen.

The Spirit so guides the Church's official teaching that it can be preserved from error (infallibility) on matters of faith.

The fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, etc.) is the truest evidence of the Spirit's presence, more than the spectacular gifts.

The Spirit distributes gifts sovereignly as He wills, so believers cannot simply claim or work up a particular gift.

By the Spirit, a believer may reach a state of entire freedom from conscious/willful sin in this life.

Baptism in/with the Holy Spirit happens at conversion and is identical with becoming a Christian: not a separate later event.

The Spirit "seals" the believer as a permanent guarantee of final salvation that cannot be undone.

The bishop of Rome (the pope) holds a divinely instituted primacy of jurisdiction over the whole church.

The church is the mystical Body of Christ, organically united to him as its head.

The church is catholic (universal): the whole company of Christ's people across all times and places, not confined to one nation, culture, or congregation.

The church is a divine institution founded by Christ, not merely a voluntary human association of like-minded believers.

The true church is essentially ONE (a single body) despite outward divisions.

Denominations are a legitimate and acceptable expression of Christian diversity, not a scandal to be overcome.

God works and dispenses truth/salvation today through ONE specific visible organization, and being rightly related to it is essential.

The true church largely apostatized after the apostolic age and had to be RESTORED in modern times through a new movement/prophet.

Belonging to the visible, organized church is normally necessary for the Christian life, not an optional add-on to private faith.

The church's central mission is to proclaim the gospel and make disciples (the Great Commission as its defining task).

Our own communion IS the one true church Christ founded; others are separated or deficient bodies, not equal branches.

The pope, under defined conditions (ex cathedra, on faith and morals), teaches infallibly.

Christ's true church has existed continuously and visibly in every age since Pentecost, never wholly apostatizing.

The church's God-willed unity must be a VISIBLE, institutional, communion-and-sacramental unity, not merely a spiritual bond among believers.

The church should formally practice corrective discipline, up to exclusion, against unrepentant serious sin among members.

The church is essentially a single concrete, visible communion; "invisible church" is a misleading abstraction.

Local churches are properly bound together under a wider connectional structure (conference, synod, communion) with real authority over them.

Christian bodies outside our own communion possess real (if imperfect) grace, valid baptism, and genuine churchly reality.

There is no salvation outside the (visible) church (extra ecclesiam nulla salus), strictly understood.

Every believer is a priest with direct access to God, with no need for a mediating human priest.

The church is apostolic: it must stand in genuine continuity with the apostles' teaching and mission.

The institutional church is a provisional, this-age reality that will give way to the consummated Kingdom, rather than itself being the final goal.

A living teaching office (magisterium) authoritatively and bindingly interprets Scripture and Tradition for the whole church.

Scripture is the sole final authority for the church's faith and practice (sola scriptura); all other authorities are subordinate and fallible.

Apostolicity consists primarily in fidelity to apostolic DOCTRINE, not in an unbroken chain of ordinations from the apostles.

The church is holy (set apart and sanctified by Christ) even though its members remain sinners.

In this age the visible church is a mixed body containing both genuine believers and the unregenerate (wheat and tares, sheep and goats together until the end).

Valid baptism requires full immersion of the body in water.

The mode of baptism (immersion, pouring, or sprinkling) is a matter of indifference and does not affect validity.

There are exactly two ordinances/sacraments instituted by Christ: baptism and the Lord's Supper.

There are seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation/chrismation, Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders, and matrimony.

The Supper is purely a memorial; the bread and wine remain only symbols that prompt remembrance, with no presence or reception of Christ.

Valid baptism must use the Trinitarian formula "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

Baptism and the Supper are primarily acts of human obedience and public testimony rather than channels of divine grace.

Christ is truly and really present in the bread and wine of the Supper, not merely symbolized.

Sacraments function chiefly to confirm, seal, and strengthen a faith already given, rather than to originate grace.

The Lord's Supper should be celebrated every Lord's Day.

The collection of tithes and offerings is itself an act of worship within the service.

Contemporary worship music (CCM, praise-and-worship bands, modern choruses) is fitting and desirable for the gathered church.

The outward form and style of worship is largely a matter of indifference (adiaphora) to be decided by culture, pastoral wisdom, or preference.

A primary purpose of the worship service is evangelism and calling outsiders to conversion.

Worship should be deliberately shaped to feel familiar and accessible to outsiders and the unchurched.

Jesus Christ will return personally, visibly, and bodily to the earth at a future point in history.

At death the believer's soul consciously enters the presence of Christ and remains aware while awaiting the bodily resurrection.

The eternal destiny of the redeemed is embodied life on a renewed earth, not a disembodied existence in a non-material heaven.

The finally unrepentant suffer conscious punishment in hell that continues without end.

The thousand-year reign of Christ (Revelation 20) denotes a literal, future, earthly period of roughly a thousand years.

The prophecies of Daniel and Revelation should be read primarily as literal predictions of still-future events.

There is no distinct "rapture" doctrine at all; the New Testament describes one return of Christ at which the living and the dead are gathered together.

Identifiable signs (wars, earthquakes, gospel preached to all nations, rise of deception) will mark the approach of the end and can be discerned.

Christ returns bodily before the millennial kingdom and personally inaugurates it on earth.

Christ's return will be accompanied by literal cosmic upheaval: darkened sun, falling stars, and visible glory seen by all.

Christ's return could occur at any moment, with no remaining prophecy that must be fulfilled first.

A specific future seven-year period of unprecedented tribulation (often tied to Daniel's seventieth week) remains to be fulfilled.

Scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for the Church.

The canon of Scripture consists of exactly the 66 books of the Protestant Bible.

The historical narratives of Scripture (e.g., the exodus, the conquest, the bodily resurrection) record events that actually happened in space and time.

Inspiration extends to the actual words of the original text, not only to the general ideas or concepts.

The Holy Spirit is properly called the divine author of Scripture.

All parts of Scripture are equally inspired, not merely the doctrinally central or "religious" portions.

The Christian Scriptures originated through a genuine act of God, not merely human religious reflection.

God created the universe out of nothing (ex nihilo), not from pre-existing matter.

God genuinely reveals something of himself through the natural world and the created order, apart from Scripture.

Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals, the literal first human beings.

The fall of humanity into sin was a real historical event by the first humans, not merely a symbol of the universal human condition.

God can and does act in the world in ways that supersede or suspend ordinary natural causes (genuine miracles are possible).

Whatever knowledge of God nature provides is insufficient for salvation; saving knowledge requires special revelation in Christ and Scripture.

A clear and reliable knowledge of God and his saving purposes requires God's special, verbal self-revelation, not merely general revelation.

Genesis 1-3 is intended as an account of actual historical events, not primarily as theological symbol, poetry, or myth.

God still performs miracles today (healings, signs, answered prayer beyond natural explanation) as he did in biblical times.

God created living things, including humans, by means of the evolutionary process, including common descent.

Deliberately ending a pregnancy by killing the unborn is in itself a grave moral wrong.

Deliberately ending a patient's life to relieve suffering (active euthanasia) is always morally wrong.

Human life possesses a special, inviolable dignity because human beings are made in the image of God.

The direct, intentional killing of an innocent human being is always gravely wrong, with no exceptions.

Human life is a gift over which we are stewards, not owners; we may not dispose of it (our own or another's) at will.

A distinct human person, bearing full moral status, exists from the moment of conception/fertilization.

In some cases (e.g., severe anomaly), ending the life of a newborn could be ethically comparable to late abortion.

Non-abortifacient contraception (barrier/hormonal methods that prevent fertilization) is morally acceptable for married couples.

A physician may permissibly help a competent, terminally ill patient end their own life at the patient's request.

Using lethal force to defend oneself or others from a deadly attacker is morally permissible.

Suicide (taking one's own life) is morally wrong.

Abortion is morally permissible when continuing the pregnancy would directly threaten the mother's life.

When a life involves sufficient suffering or loss of function, considerations of "quality of life" can outweigh the duty to preserve it.

Abortion is impermissible in all circumstances, including rape, incest, fetal anomaly, and threat to the mother's life.

A competent adult's autonomy over their own body is the decisive moral consideration in life-and-death medical choices.

Donating one's organs after death is a morally good and praiseworthy act of charity.

The state may, in principle, justly impose the death penalty for the gravest crimes.

The church should liturgically bless and solemnize same-sex unions.

Marriage is by nature a lifelong, exclusively monogamous union.

By definition and divine design, marriage is the union of one man and one woman.

Polygamy (one man, multiple wives) is morally wrong for Christians.

Premarital sex (fornication) is always sinful, even between an engaged or committed couple.

Sexual acts between two people of the same sex are always morally wrong.

A covenanted union between two people of the same sex can be a true marriage in God's sight.

Scripture provides binding, authoritative norms for sexual conduct that the church is not free to revise.

A person's sex is a fixed, binary, God-given reality determined at conception, not something that can be changed.

Sexual intercourse is morally reserved exclusively for marriage.

Women may be ordained as pastors/priests and hold the church's highest teaching/governing office.

Christians who experience exclusive same-sex attraction are called to lifelong celibacy or to a mixed-orientation marriage with the opposite sex.

One's stance and conduct on sexual ethics bears on salvation/standing before God, not merely on discipleship maturity.

It is acceptable for a Christian to marry a non-Christian (or to marry across major faith lines).

Same-sex sexual attraction is an objective disorder of desire even when not acted upon.

Sexual sins are not categorically graver than other sins and should not be singled out for special emphasis or discipline.

It is fitting for Christians to seek and hold civil office in order to govern justly.

Active civic participation (voting, advocacy, holding office) is a positive Christian duty in a free society.

Christ's lordship extends over every sphere of life (politics, economics, art, science) and Christians are called to bring all of them under his rule.

It can be morally legitimate for Christians to use lethal force under some circumstances (e.g. defense of the innocent, just war).

Racism (partiality and contempt on the basis of race or ethnicity) is a sin contrary to the gospel.

Scripture's command to welcome the foreigner and care for the sojourner imposes a real Christian duty toward immigrants and refugees today. (This question does not consider any political orientation's specific definition of what constitutes a legitimate "immigrant" or "refugee.")

Civil government is divinely instituted, and obedience to lawful authority is a Christian duty (Romans 13).

The gospel is essentially a message of individual reconciliation with God, and social transformation is at most a secondary by-product, not part of its core content.

Opposing abortion and protecting unborn life should be among the highest priorities of Christian political engagement.

Scripture provides binding, authoritative norms not only for personal conduct but for the ordering of society, economics, and the state.

Beliefs about angels and demons should be limited to what Scripture plainly teaches, rejecting speculative hierarchies, named extra-biblical angels, and elaborate demonologies.

Angels are created beings, made by God, and are not eternal or self-existent.

Biblical "angels" are best understood as symbols, personifications, or mythological language for God's action and human experience, not as actually existing spirit-persons.

Angels can assume visible, bodily appearances to interact with humans.

Angels are real, personal, created beings who actually exist, not merely literary symbols or pre-scientific imagery.

Demons are real, personal evil spirits (fallen angels or their kind), not merely symbols of disease, vice, or social evil.

The devil and his angels will suffer eternal, conscious punishment in the lake of fire.

The traditional ninefold scheme of angelic orders (seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, angels) reflects a real heavenly order.

Satan is a fallen angel (a created good being who rebelled) not an independent evil principle or co-eternal power.

Satan/the devil is a real, personal spirit-being, not merely a symbol or personification of evil.

A portion of the angels rebelled against God and fell from their original state.

Angels possess intellect and will: they know, choose, and act as persons.

The body is essential to being a complete human person, not an accidental or dispensable container for the soul.

Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals who are the biological ancestors of all humanity.

Human beings are created in the image of God.

Human beings inherit a corrupted nature (original sin) from Adam, prior to and apart from any actual sins they commit.

The human soul is by nature immortal and continues to exist consciously after the death of the body.

Human souls pass through multiple successive earthly lives (reincarnation).

The Levitical sacrificial system has been permanently ended and fulfilled by the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ.

The Old Testament clean/unclean food laws are no longer binding, and all foods are permitted.

Followers of Jesus, at least those of Jewish background, should continue to observe the full Torah (dietary law, festivals, Sabbath, circumcision).

There is exactly one mediator between God and humanity (Jesus Christ) and no creature shares in that mediating office.

Mary was preserved free from the stain of original sin from the very first moment of her own conception.

Mary now reigns as Queen of Heaven, crowned and exalted above all the angels and saints.

Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit while Mary was a virgin, without a human father.

It is good and proper to ask the saints in heaven to pray to God on our behalf.

Mary remained a virgin throughout her whole life and never had marital relations or other children after Jesus ("ever-virgin").

Mary may rightly be called "Theotokos" / "Mother of God" (God-bearer) because the one she bore is truly God incarnate.