What We Believe

Rudgwick Chapel is affiliated to the FIEC and therefore agrees with the FIEC statement of faith. We do also have our own statement of what we believe which was adopted long before the Chapel became affiliated to the FIEC. Here it is -

Part 1 is a summary of the Westminster Confession of Faith.

PART 1

The full inspiration of the Holy Scriptures; their authority and sufficiency as not only containing, but being in themselves the Word of God; the reliability of the New Testament in its testimony to the character and authorship of the Old Testament; and the need of the teaching of the Holy Spirit to a true and spiritual understanding of the whole.

The unity of the Godhead and the divine co-equality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the sovereignty of God in creation, providence and redemption.

The total depravity of human nature in consequence of the fall, the necessity for regeneration.

The true and proper Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ; His virgin birth; His real and perfect manhood; the authority of His teaching, and the infallibility of all His utterances; His work of atonement for sinners of mankind by His substitutionary sufferings and death; His bodily resurrection and His ascension into Heaven; and His present priestly intercession for His people at the right hand of the Father.

The justification of the sinner solely by repentance and faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

 

The necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, conversion and sanctification; also in ministry and worship.

The universal Church, the body of which Christ is the Head, embracing all the redeemed, called by God through the Gospel, born of the Spirit and justified by faith.

The ordinances of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as being instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, but not in Baptism as conveying regenerating grace, nor in the Lord’s Supper as being a sacrifice for sin nor involving any change in the substance of the bread and wine.

The personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory.

The resurrection of the body; the judgement of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, with the eternal blessedness of the righteous and the eternal punishment of the wicked.

PART 2

That every Christian receives the Holy Spirit at regeneration because regeneration is a work of the Holy Spirit.

That the realisation of the need of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer may come at conversion or at a later date, but the responsibility of the believer is to abide in Christ that the filling of the Holy Spirit is a continuing process.

That the Lord grants diverse gifts to his children according to the Word of God (e.g. 1 Corinthians 12:28) for ministry, worship and service. As the prime purpose of the church is to declare the gospel, we have received and wherein we stand (1 Corinthians 15:1) in the spirit of love (1 Corinthians 13), the public exercise of such gifts is to be under the direction and control of the Pastor and Deacons of the church.

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