What do you believe about the Trinity?
We believe that God exists eternally in three persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—and that these three persons are one God.
What do you believe about creation?
We believe that God is the absolute and sole creator of the universe, that through His Son, Jesus Christ, and by the work of His divine Spirit, all things were created and are upheld, not by any process of evolution but by divine fiat.
Who is Jesus?
We believe that Jesus Christ in the flesh was both God and man; that He was born of a virgin and that He lived a sinless life in which He taught and wrought great wonders and signs and miracles exactly as revealed in the four gospels; that he was crucified, died as a penalty for our sins, and was bodily resurrected from the dead on the third day; that He later ascended to the Father’s right hand where He reigns in glory as King of kings and Lord of lords; that He is head of the church, His body on earth; that He intercedes for believers and that He is coming again personally, bodily and visually to this earth to establish His millennial kingdom.
How do I go to Heaven? What makes someone “saved?”
We teach that God, by his sovereign choice and out of love for men, sent His Son into the world to save sinners; that by His Spirit He sovereignly draws men unto Himself to believe in the death of His Son, Jesus Christ, for their sins.
We teach that in His death, by His shed blood, the Lord Jesus Christ made perfect and full atonement for sin, redeeming us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us, a perfect substitute, saving and justifying us on the simple and single ground of His shed blood.
We teach that such salvation with its full forgiveness of sins, its impartation of a new nature and its hope of eternal life is by grace alone, entirely apart from good works, baptism, church membership or any effort by man and is sovereignly given to an individual by God’s imparting to that person faith in Jesus Christ’s death for his own sins.
What is so wrong with people that we need God or Jesus for?
We believe that man is totally unable to please God apart from faith imparted by His sovereign grace; that man’s sin forms a barrier to his knowing God, that apart from justification by faith in Jesus Christ, our holy God will punish sinners and destroy sin wherever He finds it; that faith is a gift, that no man has any good dwelling in him apart from the gracious work of God and that no man could choose to believe apart from God drawing Him to faith in Christ.
What is the Holy Spirit?
We teach that the Holy Spirit is a person, is God and possesses all divine attributes. He indwells all believers at the point of conversion; He baptizes them into the body of Christ and seals them unto eternal life at the moment of their salvation; He fills them when they confess their sin and yield themselves to Him; He empowers them to live an authentic Christian life when they rely upon Him.
Why is the Bible important?
We teach that the Bible is the Word of God, divinely inspired; that it is inerrant in the original manuscripts and has been supernaturally preserved by God in its verbal, plenary inspiration, and that, as such, it is the divine authoritative standard for every age and every life.
Can I lose my salvation?
We teach that a true believer is eternally secure in salvation; that he cannot lose his salvation through any sin, but that sin may interrupt the joy of his fellowship with Christ, and bring about the loving discipline of his heavenly Father.
We teach that it is the proper goal of every believer to grow in spiritual maturity through sweet communion and fellowship with his Lord, that this relationship is the only lasting motivation for good works, that out of love for Christ the believer seeks to know Christ better through prayer, through obedience to the word of God, through reliance upon the Holy Spirit and through fellowship with other believers.
After I become a Christian, what is different about me?
We teach that all who receive Christ become joint-heirs with Christ, that their old self is rendered powerless and they have been made alive together with Christ, raised up with Him and are seated with Him in the Heavenly places, that they are, therefore, dead to sin and alive to God and can now walk in newness of life; that at their death, the spirits of all believers depart to be with Christ in blessed consciousness; that at the rapture their bodies will be raised incorruptible in likeness to the body of His glory and that they will dwell in His divine presence in glory forever.
What is the point of church?
We teach that the church is Christ’s body in this world, that it is composed of all true believers, that through His church Jesus Christ carries on His work, that the purpose of the church is to give glory to God, to exalt Jesus Christ and to carry His gospel of salvation to every person; that the church does not exist for itself, but for her Lord; and that the purpose of the church assembled is to, with one voice, glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, to proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes again, and to encourage one another to love and good deeds.
Learn more about the Church of the Nazarene