Doctrinal StateIrlent All officers and members of the Faculty, Board of Directors and Board of Reference are required to sign the following confession of faith each year. Although Baptist views are held of the ordinances and church polity, the Institute functions in friendly fellowship with all evangelical Christians. 1. We believe in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writings, and that they are of supreme and final authority in faith and life. 2. We believe in one God, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, manifesting Himself in Three Persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - one in nature, attributes, power and glory. 3. We believe that the Lord jesus Christ was begotten by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and that He is true God and true man. 4. We believe that man was created in the image of God; that he sinned and thereby incurred not only physical death but also that spiritual death which is separation from God; and that all human beings are born with a sinful nature, and in the case of those who reach moral responsibility, become sinners in thought, word and deed. 5. We believe that the Lord jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice, and rose again for our justification; and that all who believe in Him are justified on the ground of His shed blood and are saved by grace through faith wholly apart from human merit and works. 6. We believe that all who receive by faith the Lord jesus are born again by the Holy Spirit through the word (sic) of God and thereby become the children of God, possessing eternal divine life. 7. We believe that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person - the Administrator of the Godhead - convicting of sin, revealing Christ, teaching truth, restraining evil, energizing believers in prayer, worship and service, and is ever present in the believer as Comforter and Helper. 8. We believe in the resurrection of the crucified body of our Lord, His ascension into Heaven, His present life there as our High Priest and Advocate, and His personal, bodily, visible, premillennial return to establish His kingdom on earth and to reign as the only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords. 9. We believe that any moment the rapture of the saved may occur, when "the Lord shall descend from heaven" to catch up His people to meet Him in the air, and "so shall we ever be with the Lord." 10. We believe in the bodily resurrection of all the dead - the saved to a life of eternal glory and bliss in Heaven with God; the unsaved to eternal judgment of conscious suffering and woe in the lake of fire. 11. We believe in separation from all worldly practices and in wholehearted devotion to the cause of Christ as the only scriptural basis for a happy and useful Christian life. For this reason we oppose all indulgences in intoxicating liquors, in dancing, card playing, the narcotic use of tobacco in any form, theatre going, membership in secret societies, and all similar practices which detract from a spiritual life. 12. We believe that it is the privilege and responsibility of every believer to be a personal soul-winner and to do his utmost to give the Gospel of Christ to the whole world. 13. We believe that the true, universal Church includes all believers in Christ during this present dispensation and is the body and bride of Christ of which He is the Head. We believe that the local church is a congregation of immersed believers, associated by covenant, observing the ordinances of Christ, exercising the gifts, privileges and responsibilities given in the New Testament, and following a democratic and congregational type of government. 14. We believe that there are two church ordinances: Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Baptism is the immersion of a believer in water to show forth in a solemn and beautiful emblem our faith in the crucified, buried and risen Savior, and our death to sin and resurrection to a new life, and that it is prerequisite to local church relation. The Lord's Supper is a memorial service commemorating His death until He comes, and should be preceded always by solemn self-examination. After the transfer of control of the College, the Baptist administration emphasized the similiarity in the beliefs and values which both institutions upheld. These similarities can be seen when comparing this doctrinal statement from the 1954 catalog with the declaration which appears on page 25. Chapter XI/91
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