ABOUT US

We believe the Bible is divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. The scriptures guide our lives and doctrine and point us to Christ.

There is one true God. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.  God is all-powerful, sovereign, all-knowing, and perfect in knowledge and deity.

“Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and lived a sinless life, perfectly revealing and fulfilling God’s will. Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Through His substitutionary death and bodily resurrection, He provided redemption to mankind from sin. Ascended to God’s right hand, He is the mediator between God and man and will return to judge the world. He now indwells all believers as Lord.”

The Holy Spirit indwells a believer on conversion and seals them until the day of redemption.  He exalts Christ. He convicts men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He calls men to the Saviour, and effects regeneration. He cultivates Christian character, comforts believers, and bestows the spiritual gifts by which they serve God through His church. 

Man is the special creation of God, made in His image. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.  God created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation. In the beginning, man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race.  Because of this, all mankind needs the forgiveness of sin offered through Christ alone.

We believe that Salvation is a gift of God that cannot be earned by good works or deeds.  Scripture declares “By grace are you saved through faith”.  We are also taught that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood shed on the cross obtained eternal redemption for the believer.  Because salvation is a gift of grace, once a person is truly saved they can never fall away but are kept by the power of God.  God’s gift of grace is not the freedom to live in sin but the grace to live holy lives in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We believe that once a person is saved then they should follow the Lord in believer’s baptism as shown in the scriptures. We believe in baptism by immersion. Baptism does not save but is a meaningful picture of the new life given through Christ Jesus.  Baptism is also a prerequisite for membership.

God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption.

Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race.

The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image.

Furthermore, we believe that children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. 

The beliefs section is based on and uses the language of the Southern Baptist Convention Statement of Faith (Baptist Faith and Message 2000) and the bylaws of FBC Maxville. The Baptist Faith and Message can be read in full here (https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/). This section does not reflect every doctrinal stance of the First Baptist Church of Maxville.