What every professing church should know
Beliefs and Doctrines of
the New Testament Church
I. The Nature of God
The God Family
God—the Hebrew word is Elohim, a plural noun inherently meaning more than one—is a holy Family of intelligent Beings, composed of spirit. The God Family is eternal and all-powerful. The God Family is perfect in love, purpose and character. The God Family is Lawgiver, Creator and Sustainer of all substance and life, and upholds and controls the universe. The Scriptures reveal that the God Family created mankind “after Our image and after Our likeness.” Therefore, God is the reality of the “image and likeness” from which man was created. The God Family presently consists of God the Father and God the Son. These two members of the God Family have the same form, or “image and likeness,” which They have given to human beings, though They are composed of spirit. One of Their purposes is to increase the God Family. According to this plan and purpose, They will share Their eternal spiritual existence and Their vast creation with those human beings who will be born again by the resurrection from death into the God Family, thereby inheriting Their magnificent love, glory and power as sons and daughters of God throughout eternity.
Scriptural References
Gen. 1:26 Eph. 3:9-21 I John 4:8
Dan. 7:9-10 Eph. 1:3-5, 9-10 Rev. 1:14-16
Col. 1:12-27 John 4:24 Psa. 19:1-7
Psa. 8:1-6 Isa. 40:12-28; 57:15 Rom. 1:20
God the Father
God the Father is the supreme, glorious, divine Spirit Being Who is the Sovereign Ruler of the universe. God the Father accomplishes His will through the power of His Holy Spirit. God the Father, Who has all power and all authority, is love. He has perfect, holy character and is full of grace and mercy. God the Father is greater than His Son Jesus Christ but shares all that He has with His Son. God the Father sent Jesus Christ, His Son, to reveal the Father’s love and grace and His magnificent plan for all mankind. God the Father directly calls each individual to salvation, grants repentance, and imparts the Holy Spirit as a begettal, so that the individual becomes a child of God the Father. God the Father Himself personally loves each one He calls and is directly involved in the life of each individual, continually imparting His love, grace, mercy and blessings so that he or she can develop His loving, perfect, righteous character. He personally hears and answers the prayers of all His begotten children.
Scriptural References
I John 4:8, 16 John 6:44 John 8:16-18
John 1:1-2, 17-18 John 14:28 Eph. 3:14-19
John 16:27 Heb. 1:1-2; 2:3-9 Eph. 4:4-6
Matt. 11:27 I Cor. 15:24-28 Rev. 21:22
God the Son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth
Prior to His human birth, the Elohim of the God Family, Who became the Son, eternally existed with the Elohim of the God Family Who became the Father. All things were created by God the Father through God the Son. The Son is revealed in the Old Testament as the Lord God and Lawgiver and in the New Testament as the Word of God. In order to become the Savior of all mankind, He willingly divested Himself of His position in the God Family, giving up His majesty, glory and power, to become a fleshly human being, born of the virgin Mary and begotten of God the Father, Who directed that He be named Jesus. His full New Covenant name is Jesus Christ of Nazareth. As a human being having sinful human flesh, He was subject to the same temptations as every human being, yet He never sinned. As the perfect Lamb of God, He gave Himself to be God the Father’s special, unique sacrifice through the crucifixion as an atonement for the sins of all mankind. After being dead in the grave for three days and three nights, He was resurrected to eternal life through the power of God the Father, becoming the Firstborn from among the dead. He was again invested with the full divine nature and power of the God Family. He ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father as mankind’s High Priest, Advocate and Intercessor and Head of His Church. Jesus Christ will return to earth in the power and glory of His Father to establish the Kingdom and government of God on the earth. As King of kings and Lord of lords, He will rule the earth forever with His brothers and sisters, the children of God the Father. (See Salvation, The Nature of Mankind and The Resurrections.)
Scriptural References
John 1:1-3 Phil. 2:6-11 Eph. 1:6-23
Heb. 2:9-14 Heb. 4:14-16 Heb. 5:7-9
Rom. 8:3, 29 Rev. 1:5, 13-16 Rev. 5:9-10
Rom. 5:8 John 3:16 John 17:1-26
I John 2:1-2 Rev. 13:8 Col. 1:14-20
III. The Love of God
God’s Love Toward Us
The love of God is revealed in that the God Family created mankind in Their image and Their likeness and gave them dominion over the entire earth, which They had bountifully created for them. God the Father’s profound spiritual love is fully manifested to mankind through His overall plan as revealed in the New Testament in the life, death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. In His supreme love, God the Father offers every human being the opportunity to be born into the God Family through the resurrection from death, becoming a literal child of God the Father, with the same form and spiritual composition as God the Father and God the Son. God’s love and reconciliation is now extended to those He is calling and will be extended to all mankind according to His plan. God the Father’s love is manifested toward those He has now called by His grace and mercy daily bestowed through Jesus Christ, His continuing intervention and blessings, and the care with which He chastens them.
Scriptural References
Deut. 4:37 John 3:16 Rom. 5:7-8
I John 3:1 Psa. 145:8 I John 4:8-10, 16
Heb. 12:6 John 16:27; 14:21 Eph. 2:4-10
IV. The Holy Bible
The Holy Bible is the Word of God. God directly inspired His chosen servants by the power of His Holy Spirit to record the Scriptures for all mankind. The Holy Bible consists of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament was written in the Hebrew language and preserved by the Masoretes, the Levites who were appointed by Ezra as the official guardians of the Old Testament. The New Testament was written and preserved in the Koiné Greek language by the original apostles of Jesus Christ. The apostle John completed the New Testament just before his death, writing the book of Revelation as the final book of the Bible. God has preserved the New Testament text through the Greek-speaking Church. Called the Byzantine Text, it was the official text of the Greek-speaking Church, after the days of the apostles, from 312-1453 AD. This text, also known as The Stephens Text of 1550, was used to translate the New Testament into English for the King James Version in 1611.
The Holy Bible contains vital spiritual knowledge revealed by God, which man cannot discover for himself. It also records the essential outline of history from the beginning of creation to Abraham, from Abraham to the birth of Jesus Christ, and from the birth of Jesus Christ to the end of the apostolic era in approximately 100 AD. The book of Revelation reveals major events prophesied to take place from the end of the apostolic era to the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth.
The Bible is the very foundation of knowledge, imparting understanding of salvation through Jesus Christ and showing mankind how to live God’s way of life in both the letter and the spirit of His Law. True Christianity is based on the entire Word of God as it applies to the individual Christian and to the Church.
Scriptural References
II Tim. 3:16-17 II Pet. 1:20-21 Deut. 8:3
Psa. 111:7-10 Psa. 119 Psa. 12:6; 19:7-9
Prov. 30:5 Matt. 1:1-17, 4:4 Gal. 1:8-12
Eph. 2:19-20 Luke 4:4 Rev. 1:1-3; 22:18-19
John 6:63 II Tim. 1:9-14 I Cor. 14:37
V. The Laws and Commandments of God
The Nature of God’s Laws
The laws and commandments of God as revealed in both the Old Testament and the New Testament are a holy and perfect set of principles based on the love of God. God’s laws and commandments are designed to teach man how to love and worship God and how to love his neighbor. God has made known His laws and commandments to the world from the beginning and requires all mankind to keep them. The laws and commandments of God define what sin is, and where there is no law there is no sin. No one could be counted as a sinner, or under sin, if God did not require all the people of the world to keep His laws and commandments. The Scriptures show that God judges all nations according to their obedience or disobedience to His laws, bringing blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience or sin. Because of sin and wickedness in Noah’s time, God destroyed the world with the Flood. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because they were sinners before God. The Ninevites were a Gentile nation not in covenant with God, but God warned them through His prophet Jonah of His impending judgment for their sins. The inhabitants of the land of Canaan were expelled because of their religious and sexual sins. The people of Israel, God’s chosen nation, also sinned grievously against God and were sent into captivity. Through sin and disobedience to God’s laws and commandments, the whole world has become guilty before Him. Generation after generation has yielded to the sinfulness of human nature and has utterly failed to meet even the minimum requirements of the letter of the Law.
While God has always required mankind to keep His laws and commandments in the letter of the Law, He desires that every human being learn to worship Him in the spirit of the Law. The full spiritual intent of God’s laws is that each one learn to love God with all the heart, mind, soul, being and strength; and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. The Scriptures reveal that obedience to God’s laws in the spirit is a condition for receiving eternal life. Only through the gift of the Holy Spirit is this obedience made possible. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, each Christian can have the laws and commandments of God written in his or her heart and mind and can learn to walk daily in the spiritual obedience that God desires. The laws and commandments of God are not contrary to grace and faith but are truly established by faith.
Scriptural References
Gen. 3:11-13; 4:7-11 Gen. 6:5-13; 15:16 Lev. 18:5
Jer. 18:7-10 Ezek. 20:11, 13, 21 Prov. 4:4
Deut. 28:1-13 Deut. 4:1-13; 6:1-4 Gal. 3:11
Rom. 10:5 Rom. 3:9-22; 4:13-16 Rom. 2:11-13
Matt. 22:36-40 Psa. 19:1-7 Psa. 111:10
John 14:15-24 Psa. 119 I John 2:4-6
Matt. 4:4 Isa. 42:21 I John 3:4
Mat. 5:17-20 I John 5:2-3 II Tim. 3:16
Heb. 8:10-12; 10:16-22 Rev. 22:14 Rev. 12:17; 14:12
The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments, spoken by God to Israel, are the foundation of all of God’s laws. They have been in effect from the beginning of mankind, over 3,000 years before their pronouncement at Mt. Sinai. Their written form is the summation of the spiritual laws which function at all times, whether a person is aware of them or not. Obedience to these commandments brings blessings, and disobedience brings curses. The Ten Commandments teach us how to express love toward God and our fellowman. They must be obeyed as a condition for receiving eternal life.
Scriptural References
Ex. 20:1-17 Deut. 5:6-21 Deut. 30:15-20
Matt. 19:16-22 Rom. 7:7-14 Matt. 22:36-40
I John 3:22-24 Rom. 13:8-10 II John 6-10
The Weekly Sabbath
The weekly Sabbath, known as Saturday today, is the seventh day of the week. In the beginning, the Sabbath was created by God. He blessed and sanctified the seventh day at creation as a special day for rest and fellowship with Him. The Sabbath is a memorial of creation and was made for all mankind. It was the commanded day of weekly worship for 3,000 years before the Ten Commandments were given to Israel. The Fourth Commandment is a reminder to observe and to keep the Sabbath day holy.
As Lord God of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ created the Sabbath by resting on the very first seventh day and by blessing and sanctifying it. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ proclaimed that He is Lord of the Sabbath day. During His ministry on earth, He reaffirmed the sacredness of the Sabbath and taught its proper observance. Jesus Christ Himself showed by example that it is right to do good on the Sabbath day, in addition to resting from one’s physical labor and secular business. The apostles of Jesus Christ and the early New Testament Church observed the Sabbath and taught Gentile Christians to observe it.
The keeping of the seventh-day Sabbath is a special sign of the covenant between God and His people. God commands that it be observed from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. During this holy time, Christians are commanded to rest from their labor and to assemble to worship God and to receive instruction from His Word. Observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is essential for salvation and for true fellowship with God the Father and Jesus Christ.
Scriptural References
Gen. 2:1-3 Mark 2:27-28 Ex. 20:8-10
Ex. 31:13-17 Isa. 58:13-14 Isa. 56:1-7
Isa. 66:23 Ezek. 20:12, 20 Lev. 23:1-3
Luke 4:4 Acts 13:42-44 Acts 17:2
Acts 18:4, 11 Acts 19:8-10 Heb. 4:4-10
The Annual Feasts and Holy Days
The Scriptures teach that there are seven annual feasts and holy days, which were ordained by God to be observed as special commanded convocations. These feasts and holy days portray God’s plan of salvation for mankind. The observance of these holy convocations is a sign between God and His people. God’s annual feasts and holy days were observed by His people during Old Testament times. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ’s entire ministry was centered around the spiritual meaning of these holy days. The New Testament apostolic Church faithfully observed these annual feasts and holy days. The Scriptures reveal that they will be observed by all mankind after the return of Jesus Christ.
As the holy days are annual Sabbath days, they may fall on any day of the week (except Pentecost, which always falls on a Sunday). When a holy day falls on a weekly Sabbath, the special observance of the annual holy day takes precedence. God’s feasts and holy days are to be observed from sunset to sunset in accordance with the Calculated Hebrew Calendar as preserved by the Levitical Jews. The seven annual feasts and holy days are as follows:
Feast or Holy Day Commanded Scriptural Date of Observance
1) Passover 14th day of the first month*
2) Unleavened Bread (7 days) 15th through 21st days of the first month (the 15th & 21st are holy days)
3) Pentecost Counted annually**
4) Trumpets 1st day of the seventh month
5) Atonement 10th day of the seventh month
6) Tabernacles (7 days) 15th through 21st days of the seventh month (the15th is a holy day)
7) Last Great Day 22nd day of the seventh month (a holy day)
*Not a holy day
**Fifty days are counted, beginning with the first day of the week during the Days of Unleavened Bread. The feast is observed on the fiftieth day, which always falls on the first day of the week.
Scriptural References
Lev. 23 Ex. 23:14-17; 31:13 Ex. 12:1-20
John 7:37 Matt. 26:17-18 I Cor. 5:7-8
Acts 2:1 Acts 18:21 Acts 20:16
I Cor. 16:8 Zech. 14:16-19 Isa. 66:23
Source: http://www.cbcg.org/beliefs.htm
Share this framework with your churches, use them as a guideline for your own proper beliefs. We believe in the narrow gate, God is a Father and Son of love, and we must stay obedient to please His loveliness.
In Christ
