STATEMENT OF BELIEF:

Fish Hoek Baptist Church believes:

• In the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in their original writings as fully inspired by God, inerrant and authoritative. The Scriptures do not merely contain but are the Word of God and the sole authority in all matters of faith and conduct.
• In one God eternally existing in three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
• That Jesus Christ was begotten by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and is true God and true man.
• That God created man in His own image; that man sinned and thereby incurred the penalty of death, physical and spiritual; that all human beings inherit a sinful nature which issues in actual transgression involving personal guilt.
• That the Lord Jesus died for our sins, a substitutionary sacrifice, according to the Scriptures, and that all who believe in Him are justified on the ground of His shed blood.
• In the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, His ascension into heaven, and His present life as our High Priest and Advocate.
• In the personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• In the personality of the Holy Sprit, His regenerating work, and abiding presence in the true believer.
• That all who receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith are born again of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God.
• That all Christians are called to a life of holiness, devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ and service for Him.
• In the resurrection both of the just and the unjust, the eternal blessedness of the redeemed, and the eternal banishment of those who have rejected the offer of salvation.
• That the one true Church is the company of those who have received the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour, been redeemed by Him and regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and that the local Church on earth should take its character from this conception of the Church spiritual and, therefore, that the new birth and personal confession of Christ are essentials of Church membership.
• In the priesthood of all believers.
• That the Lord Jesus Christ appointed two ordinances - Baptism and the Lord's Supper - to be observed as acts of obedience and as perpetual witnesses to the cardinal facts of the Christian faith; that Baptism is the immersion of the believer in water as a confession of identification with Christ in burial and resurrection, and that the Lord's supper is the partaking of the bread and the cup as symbolical of the Saviour's body and shed blood, in remembrance of His sacrificial death till His return.
• That God has ordained marriage as a heterosexual relationship between a natural man and a natural woman.

ORDINANCES:

The Church shall observe, in their New Testament simplicity, the two ordinances: Baptism and the Lord's Supper, as enjoined upon His followers by the Lord Jesus Christ.

BAPTISM:

 In addition to those desiring to join the Church, in accordance with our constitution, the pastor shall be free to baptise any who so desire to confess the Lord Jesus Christ, provided he, the pastor, has satisfied himself regarding their personal salvation.

COMMUNION:

The Lord's Supper shall, as far as possible, be observed at least on one evening of the Lord's Day and on one morning of the Lord's Day in each month. Participation at the Lord's Table shall be open to all who have received the Lord Jesus as their own personal Saviour.