First Baptist Church of Westland

1.We believe that God is a plurality in unity; that he is a triune Deity; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These three are coequal in power and glory, and they are all eternal and together make up to one God that we worship.

2. We believe that Jesus Christ is God; that he is the eternal Son of God, conceived of the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary. That he lived a sinless life and then died a vicarious and substitutionary death on the cross of Calvary. No man took his life, he laid down his life to pay for the sins of every man and woman who have ever lived. All who would be saved must put their faith in his atoning death on the cross. He is the Saviour of the entire world. He ascended up to Heaven and ever lives to make intercession for us who are saved.

3. We believe that the Holy Spirit is God. He convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. At the moment of salvation he indwells, baptizes, and seals the new Christian. He is the Devine teacher who guides those who are saved into all truth. He illuminates the word of God and always points men to Jesus Christ, that they might be saved. It is a choice and yet it is also the direct command of scripture that every Christian must be filled with the Holy Spirit. The direct proof of being filled with the Holy Spirit is that a person will actively pursue the salvation of souls.

4. We believe that the Bible is verbally, fully, and completely inspired; that we have the Bible in our language and that it is preserved in the King James Bible. We believe that there is no further revelation of any other information to be found in any books, not canonized in the 66 books of the early church. All other books, purported to be inspired are spurious.

5. We accept the Genesis account of creation, at face value and wholly reject the Gap Theory and the Day/Age Theory as utterly false, and without any Biblical standing whatsoever. We reject any Macro Evolutionary processes. Mankind is not presently evolving, nor has he ever evolved.

6. We believe that man was created in the image of God but that through Adam’s sin, mankind fell. We believe that Adam suffered both spiritual and physical death because of sin and that now death has been passed on to all of mankind. Because of man’s fall, he is totally incapable of saving himself and that his only hope of Heaven and salvation is by placing all his trust in the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross of Calvary.

7. We believe that men are born spiritually dead, and that in order to have any hope of Heaven he must be born again. No man can ever be justified in the sight of God without exercising faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All of man’s works are as filthy rags before God and it is only by being washed in the blood of Christ that any person is accepted in God’s eyes.

8. We believe that the Gospel includes the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.

9. We believe that the local church is made up of a saved, baptized membership, and that it was founded by Jesus Christ who has given to local churches alone the responsibility of carrying out the Great Commission.

10. We accept no point of Calvinism as it is expressed in “TULIP”.

11. We believe that salvation is totally the work of God and that man can only accept what God has accomplished on man’s behalf. Because salvation is the work of God, no man can lose his salvation by any bad works that he may commit or by any good works that he may omit.

12. We believe that we are saying something particularly Baptist, in our world today, when we say that we completely believe the Bible.

13. We believe that preaching is of critical importance and that it is by preaching of the word of God that souls are saved.

14. We believe that God has set Pastors Teachers, and Evangelists in the local church for the edification of believers, so that they will be equipped and encouraged to go out and preach the Gospel to the lost so that they might be saved.