Statement of Belief
The ancient church father St. Augustine offers a helpful statement on any church’s shared beliefs, “In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In everything, love.”
The idea bound up in these few words is that there exist essential teachings within Scripture that the church must be united on if the people are to experience the life of God in the family of God.
Additionally, the church has divided over the years time and time again over smaller disputes, for which there should be liberty within the church family to come as far as each member is able, honoring the continual process of belief that we each experience over a lifetime of walking with Jesus. The essentials are the anchors that hold us. The non-essentials are vital, extremely important, but the most loving, dignifying way to hold these teachings in the Christian Church is by liberty.
Finally, in everything, we are a family bound together by love. Right belief, expressed pridefully, is not love. Wrong belief, permitted freely, is also not love. Right belief, championed by love, is what Jesus embodied. We, the Body of Christ, should be a living expression of the same.
The Essentials:
The beliefs we absolutely share as essential within the family of Eden Church are:
The Scriptures
The authority of Scripture and our submission to it’s living counsel.The Gospel
The good news that God is ever-pursuing his original Creation mandate of human flourishing and perfect relationship, culminating in Jesus’ sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection.Salvation
The necessity of salvation by grace for restored relationship with God and one another.
The Scriptures
At Eden Church, we believe the Scriptures (composed of Protestant Old and New Testaments) are a library of writings, both human and divine, that tell a unified story that leads to Jesus. Put another way, the Scriptures are composed and compiled by many human authors in collaboration and concert with one divine author. A work of supreme literary artistry, the Bible was “breathed out” by God himself and is, therefore, authoritative, true, and trustworthy in all it intends to say and teach. (See 2 Timothy 3:15-17 and 2 Peter 1:21)
Whereas we expect God to be present with and in us, always revealing, we do not subscribe to notions that God contradicts what the Scriptures have historically penned for us in practice and belief. God never contradicts Himself. Therefore, Scripture serves not only as inspiration into the life of God, but also as a guardrail for us to know the will of God and test the veracity of all things. Though understanding and applying the Scriptures requires thoughtful interpretation, we enter this process with an advance commitment to accept as authoritative truth all that the Scriptures teach for belief and practice.
The Apostles’ Creed
The Apostles’ Creed is the foundational creed of Christian churches. It has received this title because of its great antiquity; most of the creed dates from the early 2nd century. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Though many churches and flavors of Christianity throughout the ages have different interpretations of the Bible, and embrace various doctrinal nuances, the essence of what the Scriptures teach is found in the words of the Apostles’ Creed.
Therefore, we have fellowship with other members of the Body of Christ who profess their faith as follows:
We believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth,
And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic (universal) church, the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.
The Nicene Creed
Similarly, the Nicene Creed was developed in the 3rd Century as a foundational statement of belief for early Christian churches across the Greco-Roman world:
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of the Father before all worlds;
God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God;
begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered and was buried;
and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures;
and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father;
and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead;
whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life;
who proceeds from the Father and the Son;
who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified;
who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe in one holy catholic (universal) and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
The Gospel
No one theology can contain the enormity of this word. We find it most useful to articulate the Gospel as a statement and a story.
The Gospel Statement
The Gospel is the good news that God himself, the Creator, has come to rescue us from sin, and renew all things, in and through the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf, to establish his Kingdom, through his people, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
This good news is initiated by God, in grace.
This good news is substitutionary: Christ has come, lived, died, and risen on our behalf.
This good news is participatory: we are involved in declaring and joining the work of God in redemptive history as his faithful, fruitful people.
This good news is news of a Kingdom, not just individual hearts. It is the Lordship of Jesus tangibly worked out across all of creation.
This good news is powerful. It wakes people from death to life, promises the presence and power of God in us, and enables us to be a preview community of the work God will do in all creation.
The Gospel Story
Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue writes, ”I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’”
The Gospel story, which spans the full biblical narrative, can be most succinctly summarized in 4 major episodes: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Renewal.
Creation
We believe in the triune God revealed in the Bible—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe in one all-powerful cosmic creator who spoke the universe into existence, who is the gracious and nurturing father, and who is best revealed in Jesus—the exact representation of his being—and who continues to speak, convict, teach, heal, and redeem by his Spirit. God’s creation was an uncorrupted place of human flourishing through union with God and one another.
Fall
Humanity was created in God’s image and granted genuine autonomy to carry out life within the good and gracious collaborative reign of God or to define what is good for themselves at the expense of other humans and all of creation. Humanity consistently chooses the latter. Humanity rebelled against God, attempting to be our own gods, resulting in the corruption of creation.
Redemption
Rather than destroying the human project, God instead chooses to pursue his unrequited love, going as far as to step down into a finite world marred by human beings that he might be with them in the mess of their own making and rescue them from the consequences of their own sin. Beginning with Abraham and Sarah, God began a long story of redemption. Israel is a family line leading to Jesus, who fulfilled the promise of blessing all nations by making a way for all people to be redeemed through his death and resurrection.
The creator God was made flesh in Jesus, who succeeded in humanity’s divine mandate where humanity had failed. Jesus inaugurated God’s kingdom, and by his life, death, and resurrection, humanity can be reconciled to God. Because of the saving work of Jesus, initiated and accomplished by God, the Spirit of God enables broken humanity to accept Jesus’s call of apprenticeship. Any and all people who accept the invitation of Jesus (come, take up your cross, and follow me) will apprentice in a new way of life—and life to the fullest, and as we follow Jesus, the Spirit of God in us empowers us to become like Jesus.
Renewal
We believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ, our Messiah, is the only hope for humankind. Solely by God’s grace are people redeemed from sin and death and made righteous and alive in Christ. The message of the Gospel is that Christ has done what is necessary to bring us into relationship with God. We believe that the Gospel speaks to the whole person, and can transform anyone anywhere, bringing the healing and restoration needed to advance God’s Kingdom of heaven on earth.
The Scriptures end with the culmination of God’s redemption plan: the renewal of all creation, where heaven and earth restored as one.
Salvation
Salvation is the word we use when we talk about how an individual experiences the transformative power of the gospel. Eugene Peterson defines it as, “Salvation is God’s way of dealing with what is wrong with the world and with us.”
Throughout the scriptures we read that salvation is experienced as a past, present and future reality. In reading God’s Word we understand that salvation is something that has happened, is happening and will happen to those who believe.
Salvation (Past Tense)
In his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul writes, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast (Eph 2:8-9). In this sense, salvation is something that has already been accomplished for us by God in the past. Past tense salvation is bound up with Jesus’ sacrificial work on the cross. It is a finished work and the gift of God to us.
Salvation (Present Tense):
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18). Notice the phrase, to us who are being saved. In this scripture salvation is revealed as something that is presently taking place. If past salvation has to do with the cross, present salvation is bound up with the risen Jesus and therefore the work of the Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches us that God has not abandoned us now that Jesus has returned to the Father. Quite the opposite; the Holy Spirit is God with us by his Spirit; cleansing and transforming us into Christ’s likeness.
Salvation (Future Tense):
Jesus' words recorded in the Gospel of Matthew reveal a final way the individual experiences salvation. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 24:12-13). The past, present and future tense of salvation is one of the great mysteries of the gospel. Our salvation is assured the moment we enter into a genuine relationship with God through faith in Christ. Yet, despite this guarantee, we must go about allowing the Holy Spirit to make us in reality what we know by faith we are — daughters and sons of God. Even as our bodies slowly deteriorate over time, even to the point of death, God’s saving work is being completed within us.
Again, according to the Apostle Paul, Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day (1 Cor 4:16).
Death has no hold nor victory over us in the end because of the saving work of the Father through the death and resurrection of the Son in the past and the present work of the Holy Spirit within us today.