About Grace Place

We believe that the Holy Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are the uniquely inspired Word of God and are without error in the original manuscripts. We accept the Bible to be the only infallible rule of faith and practice for the believer; the final authority for guiding men and women to faith in God and for living a holy life of obedience to God.

We believe in one God, Creator and Sustainer of all things, who eternally exists in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe in the distinction of each person and work of the Trinity, while affirming that they are one in essence.

We believe that God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, is an infinite, self-existent, personal Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, power and love. We believe that God concerns Himself mercifully in the affairs of men and women and saves from sin and death all who come to Him through His son Jesus Christ.

We believe in Jesus Christ as the divine Word (or Logos, John 1:1), the second Person of the Trinity, co-eternal and co-essential with the Father and The Holy Spirit (Heb. 1:3). We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate (John 1:14). The virgin-born descendant of David (Rom. 1:3), He had a true human nature, was subject to the Law of God (Gal. 4:5), and was like us at all points, except without sin (Heb. 2:17; and 7:26-28). We affirm that faith in the true humanity of Christ is essential to faith in the Gospel. We believe that the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead is essential to the biblical Gospel (1 Cor. 15:14). We believe that Christ lived a sinless life of obedience to His Father and voluntarily atoned for our sins by dying physically on a cross as our substitute. We believe that the only mediator between God and fallen humanity is Jesus Christ. We believe that on the cross Christ revealed God's divine love, upheld God's divine justice, removed our guilt and reconciled us to God. We believe that Jesus rose from the dead in the same body, though glorified, victorious over death and the powers of darkness and that He ascended bodily into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God the Father where He is now our High Priest and Advocate.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity, who is of the same essence as the Father and the Son. We acknowledge and believe in His work in regeneration, sanctification, and preservation of the saints. The Holy Spirit is the person who convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgment drawing sinners to Christ. We believe that the Holy Spirit indwells the believer, manifesting Himself and distributing gifts to the believer as He wills. We believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as discussed and outlined in I Corinthians 12:7-11, are available to the contemporary church.

We believe that humankind is God's unique creation. God created male and female in His own image with a potential for goodness and godliness. When they sinned, physical and spiritual death entered the human race resulting in separation and alienation from God. We believe that mankind is totally depraved in his sin in the sense that sin now affects every part of mankind's constitution. We believe that in Adam the entire race fell, therefore all persons are now born with a sinful nature, are sinners by choice and therefore spiritually dead, totally unable to please God. Consequently, each human being is in need of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit (being born again) in order to enter the kingdom of God.

We believe that the Gospel entrusted to the Church is, in the first instance, God's Gospel (Mark 1:14; and Rom. 1:1). God is its author, and He reveals it to us in and by His Word. Its authority and truth rest on Him. We believe that the Gospel is the saving power of God in that the Gospel effects salvation to everyone who believes, without distinction (Rom. 1:16). This efficacy of the Gospel is by the power of God Himself (1 Cor. 1:18). We affirm that the Gospel diagnoses the universal human condition as one of sinful rebellion against God, which, if unchanged, will lead each person to eternal loss under God's condemnation.

We believe that God has graciously used doctors, medicines and other material means for healing of the human body. We do not reject the possibility or availability of healing through these means, but believe that God, by His grace, has made divine healing available to His people (and even to the unregenerate). We believe that God heals on the basis of His sovereignty and upon our faith in His ability to heal.

We believe that God's redemptive purposes will be consummated by the physical, visible return of Christ to raise the dead, to judge the world according to the deeds done in the body, and to establish His glorious kingdom. The wicked shall be separated from God's presence, but the righteous, in glorious bodies, shall live and reign with Him forever. At Grace we believe that it is not essential that we would hold the same beliefs regarding the sequence of end-time events, simply that Christ is returning for His own people.

We believe that the atonement of Christ by which, in His obedience, He offered a perfect sacrifice, propitiating the Father by paying for our sins and satisfying divine justice on our behalf according to God's eternal plan, is an essential element of the Gospel. We believe that Christ's saving work included both His life and death on our behalf (Gal. 3:13). We declare that faith in the perfect obedience of Christ by which He fulfilled all the demands of the Law of God on our behalf is essential to the Gospel. We believe that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. It is entirely an act of the grace of God and not dependent on human effort.

We believe that the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, is essential to the Gospel (Rom. 2:28; 4:5; Gal. 2:16). We believe that the doctrine of imputation (reckoning or counting) both of our sins to Christ and of His righteousness to us, whereby our sins are fully forgiven and we are fully accepted, is essential to the biblical Gospel (2 Cor. 5:19-21). We deny that we are justified by the righteousness of Christ infused into us or by any righteousness that is thought to inhere within us. We believe that the righteousness of Christ by which we are justified is properly His own, which He achieved apart from us, in and by His perfect obedience. This righteousness is counted, reckoned, or imputed to us by the forensic (that is legal) declaration of God, as the sole ground of our justification. We deny that any works we perform at any stage of our existence add to the merit of Christ or earn for us any merit that contributes in any way to the ground of our justification (Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8-9; Titus 3:5).

We believe that a person becomes a child of God by placing their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. In doing so their sins are forgiven, once for all, and they become a new creation in Christ. We believe that saving faith includes mental acceptance of the Gospel, acknowledgment of our own sin and need, and personal trust and reliance upon Christ and His work. We believe that, while all believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and are in the process of being made holy and conformed to the image of Christ, those consequences of justification are not its ground. God declares us just, remits our sins, and adopts us as His children, by His grace alone, and through faith alone, because of Christ alone, while we are still sinners (Rom. 4:5). We believe that saving faith results in sanctification, the transformation of life in growing conformity to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification means ongoing repentance, a life of turning from sin to serve Jesus Christ in grateful reliance on Him as one's Lord and Master (Gal 5:22-25; Rom. 8:4, 13-14).

We believe that each believer is sealed and secured as a result of their position in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. We believe that the evidence of salvation should be a desire to love and serve God, the manifestation of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, a passion for sharing the gospel, and good works. We believe that nothing can be added or taken away from the finished work of Christ on the cross.

About Heaven and Hell We believe that God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world through Christ where everyone will give an account of his or her thoughts, words and actions. We believe in the reality of eternal separation and punishment for those without Christ, and eternal bliss and service for the believers; literal hell for the unsaved, and heaven for the believer.

We believe that the church, the body of Christ, is composed of all persons, living and dead, who have been joined to Christ who is the Head of the church. Every true believer is baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ (I Corinthians 12: 12-13). This relates believers to one another spiritually, regardless of denominational distinction. We believe that the Church is commanded by God, and is therefore under obligation to preach the Gospel to every living person (Luke 24:47; Matt. 28:18-19). We believe the ordinances of the church (given by Christ) are believer's baptism and the Lord's Supper.

We believe that it is every Christian's responsibility to glorify, yield and trust themselves to God, allowing Christ to live His life through them. Each Christian should seek to live a blameless life before God, the church and the world, and be faithful stewards of all possessions. We believe that Jesus Christ commands His followers to proclaim the Gospel to all living persons, evangelizing everyone everywhere, and discipling believers within the fellowship of the Church. A full and faithful witness to Christ includes the witness of personal testimony, godly living, and acts of mercy and charity to our neighbor, without which the preaching of the Gospel appears barren. We believe that each Christian should seek to be constantly filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), to press on towards maturity in Christ, and to fulfill the call of God on their life.