What We Believe

We believe in one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect and eternally existing as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, also called the Holy Trinity (Matt 28:19), distinct from one another, but all sharing equally in the fullness of deity. 

Father: John 6:27;1 Timothy 6:15-16; 1 Cor. 8:6 

Son: John 1:1-5, 14, 10:30, 33; Hebrews 1:3 

Holy Spirit: 2 Corinthians 3:17; John 15:26-27 

We believe that by the miracle of the virgin birth the Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal Son of God, became man without ceasing to be God in order to reveal God and to redeem humanity; that He died for our sins (the sins of all people) as a substitutionary sacrifice and rose bodily from the dead for our justification; and that He is now exalted at the right hand of God, Head of the Church and Lord of the individual believer, fulfilling His ministry as our Great High Priest and Advocate. We believe that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and was raised from the dead after 3 days (I Corinthians 15:3-6). We believe in the personal second coming of our Lord to set up His earthly Kingdom and to reign over redeemed Israel and all the nations of the world. 

Matthew 1:18-21; Luke 24:1-7; John 1:1-14, Acts 1:9-11; Romans 5:6-11; Hebrews 7:23-8:2, 8:6-13, 9:12-28, 10:10-14; 1 John 2:1-2; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 20:4-6 

We believe that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. His ministry is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. He convicts the world of sin, regenerates the believer, and places him in the Church, which is the Body of Christ. We believe that He indwells, guides, instructs, comforts, gifts, and empowers the Christian for godly living and service, and that He seals and keeps the believer until the Lord comes. 

John 14:26; John 16:5-15; Acts 2; Romans 8:26-27; 1 Corinthians 2:12, 6:19, 12:7-13; Galatians 5:16-25 Ephesians 1:13-14 

We believe that the Scriptures, all 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, are the authoritative Word of God. We believe that these scriptures in their entirety were written by human authors to an ancient audience through God’s divine inspiration. All of Scripture is inerrant, without error in all it asserts in the original writings. All of Scripture points to and centers on Jesus and are a Christian’s final authority in faith and conduct. (Mark 12:26, 35-37; Luke 24:25-27, 44; John 5:39; Acts 1:16; 17:2–3; 18:28; 26:22–23; 28:23; Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 2:13; Hebrews 4:12; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:20-21) 

We believe the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, were created in the image of God, but that they sinned, incurring not only physical death, but also spiritual death. Through birth, spiritual death is inherited by every member of Adam’s race. We believe that humanity is subject to the power of Satan and has within themselves no possible means of recovery or salvation. Only when a person reaches an awareness of this reality are they in a position to receive God’s free gift of salvation. 

Genesis 1:26-27; Romans 3:23, 5:12-21, 6:23 

We believe that throughout God’s redemptive plan, God instituted certain covenants (binding agreements of relationships between God and mankind). There are conditional covenants—where the results are based on the actions of both parties. There are unconditional covenants where the results are only based on the actions of God. 

God makes a conditional covenant with Adam in the Garden. When that covenant was broken, sin entered into the world, and mankind was separated from God (Gen 1-3). God makes an unconditional covenant with Noah to never destroy the earth again through a flood (Gen 8:20-9:17). God makes an unconditional covenant with Abram to bless him, giving him land, make him a great nation through his own offspring, and that through him all the nations would be blessed (Gen 12, 15, 17) 

Deuteronomy 27-30, God creates a conditional covenant with His people Israel—obey the Law that God gave through Moses and be blessed; disobey the Law, rebel against God, and be cursed and be kicked out of the land that God had promised their fathers. This is what is often referred to as the “Old Covenant” or the Mosaic Law. This Law and conditional covenant were given to the nation of Israel alone. 

God prophesied through the prophet Jeremiah (Jer 31) of a New Covenant that God would institute. This is an unconditional Covenant of Grace solely based on the complete and sufficient work of Jesus. The author of Hebrews shares that the new covenant is “superior to the old one” (Heb 8:6); “by calling it ‘new’, (God) has made the first (old covenant) obsolete (Heb 8:13); with Christ as the mediator of the New Covenant (Heb 9:15); setting aside the first (Mosaic Covenant) to establish the second (New Covenant) by which we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Heb 10:9-10). 

As New Testament followers of Jesus, under His New Covenant, we are not under or bound to the Mosaic Law that the nation of Israel was bound to. (Romans 10:4; Gal 2:16, 3:13). We can look to the Mosaic Law to learn of the righteous character of God, mankind’s inability to save itself, and our propensity toward sin (Rom 5:20). Followers of Christ are now bound by the Law of Christ, or the Law of Love instituted by the Great Commandments (Matt 22:36-40; Mark 12:28-31; Luke 10:25-28; John 13:34) 

We believe that salvation is the free gift of God, neither merited nor secured in part or in whole by any virtue or work of man or woman. Salvation is received only by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all true believers have, as present possessions, the gift of eternal life, a perfect righteousness, adoption into the family of God, deliverance and complete security from all condemnation, every spiritual resource needed for life and godliness, and the divine guarantee that they shall never perish. We believe that such a salvation can never be lost or forfeited. 

John 10:28; John 17:3; Romans 8:1-4, 10:9-10; Ephesians 1:1-10, 2:8-9; 1 John 5:11-13; Acts 4:12 

When a person puts his faith in Christ, God justifies him (Galatians 2:16). Justification is God’s act of forgiving our sins (Romans 4:6-8), declaring us innocent, and putting us into a right relationship with Himself so that we can now enjoy peace with Him (Romans 5:1). It is both something the Mountainview Christian Church 2025 5 

believer experiences now (Romans 5:1) and something he anticipates in the age to come (Galatians 5:5). God does not justify us in response to our performing works of the Law (i.e. legalistic strivings to earn God’s favor, cf. Romans 3:20), but in response to our faith (Genesis 15:6). Justification is the judicial aspect of salvation (2 Tim 1:9-10). God graciously and fully pardons the sinner who trusts in Jesus for their salvation. The righteousness of Jesus is imputed to the new Jesus follower so that God views them as positionally holy and blameless. 

Sanctification is God’s act of setting his people apart for His purpose (1 Corinthians 1:2, 6:11; 1 Peter 1:2). In this sense, it is similar to His “calling” (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14). But sanctification also refers to the process whereby God causes us to share His holiness (1 Thessalonians 5:23, Hebrews 12:10). This does not happen all at once, nor will it happen completely in this life (1 John 1:8, Philippians 2:12-13). Neither will the progress always be steady; there will be setbacks (Romans 7:21ff). Yet this progress in holiness is essential, and therefore we must “pursue the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). But we must be ever so careful how we pursue it. We must never think of sanctification as adding works of the Law (i.e., legalistic strivings) to our faith. The Christian life is a life of faith from start to finish. Our initial response was faith, and our continued response must be faith (Galatians 3:2-3). 

Perseverance in faith and the obedience of faith to the end of a person’s life are evidence of a person’s salvation and genuine conversion. (1 Corinthians 15:2, Hebrews 3:14, 2 Peter 1:5-11). God will see to it that His people persevere in faith (John 10: 28-30, Philippians 1:6, 1 Thessalonians 5:24, 1 Peter 1:3-5). The way in which God causes His children to endure is by giving us magnificent promises (2 Peter 1:3-4), which will be ours if we run the race, and by giving us terrible warnings of what will come if we fall away (Hebrews 10:26ff). We are commanded to have and maintain full assurance of our salvation (Hebrews 6:11, 10:22). Yet if we are tending to be arrogant about our status as though it were due to something in ourselves, we are warned to “take heed lest we fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). We are to test ourselves to see if we are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5) and to be diligent to make our calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10). A clear evidence that we are God’s is that we are growing in love for others (1 John 3:14, 4:7-8). God keeps His children eternally secure by giving them a lively longing for His promises and a healthy fear of His warnings. Those who make some kind of beginning in the Christian faith, but do not continue, give evidence that they never really had saving faith (Colossians 1:22, Hebrews 3:14, 1 John 2:19, 28-29) 

Glorification is God’s act of “transforming the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory” (Romans 8:23, 1 Corinthians 15:51-57, Philippians 3:20-21). This is God’s final act in His process of saving us and transforming us into the image of His Son (Romans 8:29-30). It will take place at the consummation of this age when Christ appears (Philippians 3:20-21). Christ is in us now as “the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27), and everyone who has this hope of glory “purifies himself just as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). So, in a very real sense, we are in the process of being glorified now, and we are in the process of becoming like Christ. “We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory....” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Through suffering with Christ in the present age, we will be glorified with Him in the age to come (Romans 8:17). This is the climax and goal of salvation. We who are “vessels of mercy” have been prepared beforehand for glory (Romans 9:13). Nothing else could satisfy our hearts’ craving for enduring joy more than to behold the glory of God. “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after...to behold the beauty of the Lord....” (Psalm 27:4). 

We believe that the believer in Christ is completely forgiven of all sin—past, present, and future—through the sufficient work of Jesus on the cross, being the sufficient sacrifice and payment for our sin. Our redemption in Christ is complete and God says to all believers: Christ sacrificed once to take away the sin of many (Heb 9:27-28) We have been made holy once and for all (Heb 10:10); “I (God) will remember their sins no more...” (Hebrews 8:12, 10:17) God is for every believer, no longer condemning them, so nothing can separate us from the love of God. (Romans 8:37-39). As believers in Jesus, we stand forgiven from all unrighteousness (Eph 1:7; Col 1:13-14; 1 John 1:9-10, 2:12) 

“Those whom He predestined, these He also called” (Romans 8:30). God’s calling consists in His effectual getting the attention of an individual and confronting him with the beauty of the gospel in such a way that he embraces the gospel in faith. It is more than merely His general call (Matthew 22:14), which He issues to all people through general and special revelation. God calls each individual whom He has chosen at a given point in that person’s life (1 Corinthians 7:22). For God’s calling to be effectual it must include some kind of transformation of the heart as one is drawn to Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit. Yet it is also clear that men and women are moral agents because they act voluntarily and are responsible to God for their actions. God never forces any human to do anything against their own will. We all have the choice to fully accept or reject Christ’s offer of forgiveness of sin. (Rom. 10:11-13; John 12:48) Therefore, there is some mystery of both God’s effectual call and humanity’s use of free will, and both are at work simultaneously. (Phil. 2:12-13) 

Regeneration is the transformation of the heart. It is God’s act of “causing us to be born again” (1 Peter 1:3). This new birth is necessary because all people are spiritually dead in their sins (Ephesians 2:1) and unable to submit to God’s Law (Romans 8:8). Regeneration is the great promise of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34, 32:38-41; Ezekiel 36:26ff). It is God’s act of transforming our hard and impenitent hearts into hearts that are responsive to His promptings. He gives us a new set of inclinations (Jeremiah 31:33) by which we begin to prefer to humble ourselves to His offer of mercy and submit to His gracious will - the very thing we were unable to do apart from the regenerating power of the Spirit (Romans 8:7). Regeneration is not something which is initiated by man (John 3:4, Titus 3:5), but it is God’s act through the agency of the Holy Spirit. 

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is twofold. First, it is the immersion of a person into the Holy Spirit at the point of conversion, at which time he is empowered to be a witness to God’s work in his life (Acts 1:8). Second, it is the immersion of a believer into the Body of Christ (1Corinthians 12:13). When a person is immersed in the Holy Spirit, he is empowered to focus on growth, freedom, and life. He begins to discover and use his gifts and work to build up the Body of Christ. The ultimate manifestation of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is when the manifold wisdom and power of God is released through the CORPORATE BODY of believers, as each carries out ministry together. 

In Ephesians 5:18, Paul states an emphatic command to be filled or controlled with the Spirit. It literally means, “Being kept/filled/controlled with the Spirit.” It is a command that includes the idea of an ongoing God consciousness in one's life. Every Christian possesses the Holy Spirit in all His fullness from the moment he believes. Romans 8:9 says, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” At salvation, the believer is baptized by means of the Spirit into the Body of Christ, indwelt by the Spirit, and sealed by the Spirit until the day of redemption. (Acts 1:8, 2:1-13; Ephesians 4:16) 

We believe in the bodily resurrection of all people. Believers are resurrected to enjoy eternal life with God. Unbelievers are resurrected to experience judgment and then eternal suffering apart from God. 

We believe that at the death of the body, the souls of those who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation pass immediately into His presence and remain there until the physical resurrection of the body. When Christ returns, the souls of the dead will be reunited with their resurrected bodies to be with Christ forever in glory. Those who are alive on the earth at His coming will have their bodies transformed, without the corruption of sin, made fit to reside eternally with Him on the new earth He creates. (Rev 21:1-22:5) 

We believe in literal hell, and that in hell unbelievers will be punished with everlasting separation from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power because they have chosen to be opposed to God (1 Corinthians 15:50-58; 2 Corinthians 5:6-8; Philippians 1:21-23; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; John 20:1-9; Revelation 20:4-6, 11-15).