GENERAL INFORMATION
DOCTRINAL STATEMENT Inasmuch as the Unirersity is interdenominati onal and ye t theoiogicall y conse rvative, the Arti cles of Incorporation contain a doc trinal statement whi ch is give n below: The Bible, consisting of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, is the Word of God, a supernawrallygiven reve- lation fr om God Himse lf, conce rning Himse lf, Hi s being, na ture, charac ter, will and purposes; and concerning man, hi s nature, need and duty and des tiny. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are without error or miss tatement in th eir mo ral and spiritual teaching and record of hi stori cal facts. Theyare without erro r or defect of anykind. Th ere is one God , etern all y ex isting and mani fes ting Himse lf to us in three Persons - Father, Son and HolySpirit. Our Lord Jesus was supe rn aturally co nce ived by th e powe r of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin - Mary, a lin- eal descendant of Darid. He li ved and taught and wrought mi ghtyworks and wonders and signs exac tlvas is recorded in the four Gospels. He was put to death by crucifi xion under Pontius Pi late. God raised from the dead the body that had been nailed to the cross. The Lord Jesus after His crucifix- ion showed Himse lf to be ali ve to His di scipl es, appearing un to them bv.the space of 40 days. After thi s, the Lord.J esus ascended into heaven, and the Father caused Him to sit at Hi s ri ght hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and auth ority and power and domi nion, and every name that is named, not only in thi s wo rld , but also in that whi ch is to come, and put all things in subj ection under Hi s feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church. Th e Lord Jesus, befo re Hi s in carnati on, ex isted in the fo rm of God and of Hi s own choice laid aside Hi s di vine glory and took upon Himself the fo rm of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. In His pre-existent state, He was with God and was God. He is a divine person possessed of all the attributes of Deity, and should be worshiped as Goel by ange ls and man. "In Him dwe lleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." All the wo rds that He spoke during His earthly life were the words of God. There is absolutely no error of any kind in them, and by the words ofJesus Christ the words of all oth er teachers must be tested. The Lord Jes us became in every respect a real man, pos- sessed of all the essential characteristics of human nature. By His death on the cross, the Lord Jesus made a perfec t atonement for sin , bywhich the wrath of God against sinners is appeased and a ground furnished upon which God can deal in mercy 11~th sinners. He redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse in our place. He who Himself was absolutely without sin was made to be sin on our behalf that we might become the 1ighteousness of God in Him. The LordJesus iscon, ing again to his earth , personally, bodi ly, and visibly. The return of our Lord is the blessed hope of the believer, and in it God's purposes of grace toward mankind will find their consummation. The HolySpirit is a person , and is possessed of all the dis- tincti ve lydivin e attributes. He is God.
Man was created in the image of God, after Hi s li keness, but the whole human race fell in the fa ll of the first Adam. All men, until they accept the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior, are lost, darkened in their understanding, alienated from the li fe of God through the ignorance that is in them, hardened in heart , morall y and spiritually dead through th eir trespasses and sins. They cannot see, nor enter th e Kingdom of God until they are born again of the HolySpirit. Men are justifi ed on the simple and single ground of the shed blood of Christ and upon the simple and single condi- tion of faith in Him who shed the blood, and are born again by the qui ckening, renewing, cl eansing work of th e Holy Spi rit, through the instrumentalityof the Word of God. All those who receive Jesus Christ as their Sa1~or and their Lord, and who confess Him as such before their fellowmen, become children of God and receive eternal life. They become heirs of God and joint-heirs 11~th Jesus Christ. At death their spiri ts depart to be 11~th Christ in conscious blessedness, and at tl1e Second Coming of Christ their bodies shall be raised and transformed into the likenessof the bodyof Hisglory. All tl1ose who persistently reject Jesus Ch,ist in tl1e prese111 life shall be raised from tl1e dead and throughout eterni~, exist in the state of conscious, unutterable,,endless tonnent and anguish. The Church consists of all those who, in tl1is present dispen- sation, u·uly beliel'e in Jesus Christ. It is the body and bride of Christ,which Christ loves and for which He has given Himself. There is a personal devil , a being of great cunning and power: 'The pri nce of the power of the air," "The prince of this world ," "The god of this age ." He can exert vas t power only so fa r as God suffers him to do so . He shall ultimately be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone and shall be tor- mented day and night forever. Note: This dort,inal slalemenl, /msen led here as originally con- ceived /Jy thefo 1mdm of theorgan ization , has bem and ron tinues lo be the slated lheologiral position of Biola Un ivmity. In addition, the following explanato,y notes indicate the organization's under- standing and leaching position on cert ain points which could be sub1ect lovmious intnprelalions: The Sc1iptures are to be i111erpreted according to dispensa- tional distinctives 11~tl1 tl1e com1ction that the return of the Lord for HisChurch 11i ll be premillennial, before tl1e T,ibulation, and that the Mi llennium is to be tl1e last of tl1e dispensations. The existence of the Creation is not explainable apart from the roles of Goel as the sovereign creator and sustainer of the entire natural realm. Concepts such as theistic or threshold evoluti on do not adequatelyexplain creation. Though there may be many fi llings of the Holy Spirit, there is only one baptismwhich occurs at the time of regen- eration. God gives His gifts to His people in Hi s sovereignty and not on demand. The charismatic manifestations (e .g., tongues and healing) had special signifi cance duri ng the rev- elatory period of the NewTes tament apostoli c era and are not at all a necessaryspecial work of the HolySpirit today.
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